Hamlet: Entire Play
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

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ACT I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO
BERNARDO

Who’s there?
FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO

Long live the king!
FRANCISCO

Bernardo?
BERNARDO

He.
FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.
BERNARDO

‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks: ’tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO

Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO

Not a mouse stirring.
BERNARDO

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

I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
HORATIO

Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS

And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO

Give you good night.
MARCELLUS

O, farewell, honest soldier:
Who hath relieved you?
FRANCISCO

Bernardo has my place.
Give you good night.
Exit
MARCELLUS

Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO

Say,
What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO

A piece of him.
BERNARDO

Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS

What, has this thing appear’d again to-night?
BERNARDO

I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS

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

Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.
BERNARDO

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

Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
BERNARDO

Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,–
Enter Ghost
MARCELLUS

Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BERNARDO

In the same figure, like the king that’s dead.
MARCELLUS

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

Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO

Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
BERNARDO

It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS

Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO

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

It is offended.
BERNARDO

See, it stalks away!
HORATIO

Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
Exit Ghost
MARCELLUS

‘Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO

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

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

Is it not like the king?
HORATIO

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

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

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

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

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

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

A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.–
But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
Re-enter Ghost
I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:
Cock crows
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO

Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO

‘Tis here!
HORATIO

‘Tis here!
MARCELLUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS

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

VOLTIMAND

In that and all things will we show our duty.
KING CLAUDIUS

We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES

My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
KING CLAUDIUS

Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?
LORD POLONIUS

He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition, and at last
Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING CLAUDIUS

Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,–
HAMLET

[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET

Not so, my lord; I am too much i’ the sun.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET

Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ‘seems.’
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING CLAUDIUS

‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
‘This must be so.’ We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING CLAUDIUS

Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king’s rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
HAMLET

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month–
Let me not think on’t–Frailty, thy name is woman!–
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body,
Like Niobe, all tears:–why she, even she–
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn’d longer–married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO
HORATIO

Hail to your lordship!
HAMLET

I am glad to see you well:
Horatio,–or I do forget myself.
HORATIO

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
HAMLET

Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
MARCELLUS

My good lord–
HAMLET

I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO

A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET

I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO

My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
HAMLET

I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
HORATIO

Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
HAMLET

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!–methinks I see my father.
HORATIO

Where, my lord?
HAMLET

In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
HORATIO

I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAMLET

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET

Saw? who?
HORATIO

My lord, the king your father.
HAMLET

The king my father!
HORATIO

Season your admiration for awhile
With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.
HAMLET

For God’s love, let me hear.
HORATIO

Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.
HAMLET

But where was this?
MARCELLUS

My lord, upon the platform where we watch’d.
HAMLET

Did you not speak to it?
HORATIO

My lord, I did;
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish’d from our sight.
HAMLET

‘Tis very strange.
HORATIO

As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
HAMLET

Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night?
MARCELLUS

BERNARDO

We do, my lord.
HAMLET

Arm’d, say you?
MARCELLUS

BERNARDO

Arm’d, my lord.
HAMLET

From top to toe?
MARCELLUS

BERNARDO

My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET

Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO

O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
HAMLET

What, look’d he frowningly?
HORATIO

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET

Pale or red?
HORATIO

Nay, very pale.
HAMLET

And fix’d his eyes upon you?
HORATIO

Most constantly.
HAMLET

I would I had been there.
HORATIO

It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET

Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?
HORATIO

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
MARCELLUS

BERNARDO

Longer, longer.
HORATIO

Not when I saw’t.
HAMLET

His beard was grizzled–no?
HORATIO

It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver’d.
HAMLET

I will watch to-night;
Perchance ’twill walk again.
HORATIO

I warrant it will.
HAMLET

If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
Upon the platform, ‘twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.
All

Our duty to your honour.
HAMLET

Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Exit

SCENE III. A room in Polonius’ house.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA
LAERTES

My necessaries are embark’d: farewell:
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
OPHELIA

Do you doubt that?
LAERTES

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
OPHELIA

No more but so?
LAERTES

Think it no more;
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will: but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and health of this whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
OPHELIA

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
LAERTES

O, fear me not.
I stay too long: but here my father comes.
Enter POLONIUS
A double blessing is a double grace,
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
LORD POLONIUS

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
LAERTES

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

The time invites you; go; your servants tend.
LAERTES

Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA

‘Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES

Farewell.
Exit
LORD POLONIUS

What is’t, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
OPHELIA

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
LORD POLONIUS

Marry, well bethought:
‘Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:
If it be so, as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution, I must tell you,
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? give me up the truth.
OPHELIA

He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
LORD POLONIUS

Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
OPHELIA

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
LORD POLONIUS

Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby;
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
Or–not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus–you’ll tender me a fool.
OPHELIA

My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honourable fashion.
LORD POLONIUS

Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
OPHELIA

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
LORD POLONIUS

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you: come your ways.
OPHELIA

I shall obey, my lord.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. The platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
HAMLET

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO

It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET

What hour now?
HORATIO

I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET

No, it is struck.
HORATIO

Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET

The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
HORATIO

Is it a custom?
HAMLET

Ay, marry, is’t:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax’d of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth–wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin–
By the o’ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o’er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star,–
Their virtues else–be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo–
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: the dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
HORATIO

Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
HAMLET

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Ghost beckons HAMLET
HORATIO

It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS

Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.
HORATIO

No, by no means.
HAMLET

It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HORATIO

Do not, my lord.
HAMLET

Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life in a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again: I’ll follow it.
HORATIO

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET

It waves me still.
Go on; I’ll follow thee.
MARCELLUS

You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET

Hold off your hands.
HORATIO

Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET

My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I’ll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
HORATIO

He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS

Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO

Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO

Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS

Nay, let’s follow him.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the platform.

Enter GHOST and HAMLET
HAMLET

Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I’ll go no further.
Ghost

Mark me.
HAMLET

I will.
Ghost

My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAMLET

Alas, poor ghost!
Ghost

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
HAMLET

Speak; I am bound to hear.
Ghost

So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAMLET

What?
Ghost

I am thy father’s spirit,
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love–
HAMLET

O God!
Ghost

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET

Murder!
Ghost

Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
HAMLET

Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
Ghost

I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET

O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
Ghost

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,–
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!–won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
Exit
HAMLET

O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,–meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark:
Writing
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ‘Adieu, adieu! remember me.’
I have sworn ‘t.
MARCELLUS

HORATIO

[Within] My lord, my lord,–
MARCELLUS

[Within] Lord Hamlet,–
HORATIO

[Within] Heaven secure him!
HAMLET

So be it!
HORATIO

[Within] Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET

Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
MARCELLUS

How is’t, my noble lord?
HORATIO

What news, my lord?
HAMLET

O, wonderful!
HORATIO

Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET

No; you’ll reveal it.
HORATIO

Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS

Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET

How say you, then; would heart of man once think it?
But you’ll be secret?
HORATIO

MARCELLUS

Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET

There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.
HORATIO

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET

Why, right; you are i’ the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you;
For every man has business and desire,
Such as it is; and for mine own poor part,
Look you, I’ll go pray.
HORATIO

These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET

I’m sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, ‘faith heartily.
HORATIO

There’s no offence, my lord.
HAMLET

Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster ‘t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO

What is’t, my lord? we will.
HAMLET

Never make known what you have seen to-night.
HORATIO

MARCELLUS

My lord, we will not.
HAMLET

Nay, but swear’t.
HORATIO

In faith,
My lord, not I.
MARCELLUS

Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET

Upon my sword.
MARCELLUS

We have sworn, my lord, already.
HAMLET

Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
Ghost

[Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET

Ah, ha, boy! say’st thou so? art thou there,
truepenny?
Come on–you hear this fellow in the cellarage–
Consent to swear.
HORATIO

Propose the oath, my lord.
HAMLET

Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.
Ghost

[Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET

Hic et ubique? then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.
Ghost

[Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET

Well said, old mole! canst work i’ the earth so fast?
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
HORATIO

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’
Or ‘If we list to speak,’ or ‘There be, an if they might,’
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.
Ghost

[Beneath] Swear.
HAMLET

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
They swear
So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you:
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Exeunt

ACT II
SCENE I. A room in POLONIUS’ house.

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO
LORD POLONIUS

Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO

I will, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behavior.
REYNALDO

My lord, I did intend it.
LORD POLONIUS

Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it:
Take you, as ’twere, some distant knowledge of him;
As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends,
And in part him: ‘ do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO

Ay, very well, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

‘And in part him; but’ you may say ‘not well:
But, if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild;
Addicted so and so:’ and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
REYNALDO

As gaming, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
Drabbing: you may go so far.
REYNALDO

My lord, that would dishonour him.
LORD POLONIUS

‘Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.
REYNALDO

But, my good lord,–
LORD POLONIUS

Wherefore should you do this?
REYNALDO

Ay, my lord,
I would know that.
LORD POLONIUS

Marry, sir, here’s my drift;
And I believe, it is a fetch of wit:
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’ the working, Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence;
‘Good sir,’ or so, or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman,’
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.
REYNALDO

Very good, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

And then, sir, does he this–he does–what was I
about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
something: where did I leave?
REYNALDO

At ‘closes in the consequence,’ at ‘friend or so,’
and ‘gentleman.’
LORD POLONIUS

At ‘closes in the consequence,’ ay, marry;
He closes thus: ‘I know the gentleman;
I saw him yesterday, or t’ other day,
Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say,
There was a’ gaming; there o’ertook in’s rouse;
There falling out at tennis:’ or perchance,
‘I saw him enter such a house of sale,’
Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
See you now;
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out:
So by my former lecture and advice,
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
REYNALDO

My lord, I have.
LORD POLONIUS

God be wi’ you; fare you well.
REYNALDO

Good my lord!
LORD POLONIUS

Observe his inclination in yourself.
REYNALDO

I shall, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

And let him ply his music.
REYNALDO

Well, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS

Farewell!
Exit REYNALDO
Enter OPHELIA
How now, Ophelia! what’s the matter?
OPHELIA

O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
LORD POLONIUS

With what, i’ the name of God?
OPHELIA

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul’d,
Ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,–he comes before me.
LORD POLONIUS

Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA

My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
LORD POLONIUS

What said he?
OPHELIA

He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o’er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn’d,
He seem’d to find his way without his eyes;
For out o’ doors he went without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.
LORD POLONIUS

Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
OPHELIA

No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
I did repel his fetters and denied
His access to me.
LORD POLONIUS

That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him: I fear’d he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!
By heaven, it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king:
This must be known; which, being kept close, might
move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from the understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of: I entreat you both,
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And sith so neighbour’d to his youth and havior,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time: so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
That, open’d, lies within our remedy.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you;
And sure I am two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.
ROSENCRANTZ

Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.
GUILDENSTERN

But we both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent
To lay our service freely at your feet,
To be commanded.
KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz:
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
GUILDENSTERN

Heavens make our presence and our practises
Pleasant and helpful to him!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Ay, amen!
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some Attendants
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS

The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return’d.
KING CLAUDIUS

Thou still hast been the father of good news.
LORD POLONIUS

Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious king:
And I do think, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do, that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.
KING CLAUDIUS

O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
LORD POLONIUS

Give first admittance to the ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
KING CLAUDIUS

Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
Exit POLONIUS
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

I doubt it is no other but the main;
His father’s death, and our o’erhasty marriage.
KING CLAUDIUS

Well, we shall sift him.
Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND

Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew’s levies; which to him appear’d
To be a preparation ‘gainst the Polack;
But, better look’d into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
Giving a paper
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
KING CLAUDIUS

It likes us well;
And at our more consider’d time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we’ll feast together:
Most welcome home!
Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
LORD POLONIUS

This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

More matter, with less art.
LORD POLONIUS

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughter–have while she is mine–
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.
Reads
‘To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most
beautified Ophelia,’–
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is
a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:
Reads
‘In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.’
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Came this from Hamlet to her?
LORD POLONIUS

Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
Reads
‘Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
‘O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
‘Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
this machine is to him, HAMLET.’
This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means and place,
All given to mine ear.
KING CLAUDIUS

But how hath she
Received his love?
LORD POLONIUS

What do you think of me?
KING CLAUDIUS

As of a man faithful and honourable.
LORD POLONIUS

I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing–
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me–what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be:’ and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed–a short tale to make–
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.
KING CLAUDIUS

Do you think ’tis this?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

It may be, very likely.
LORD POLONIUS

Hath there been such a time–I’d fain know that–
That I have positively said ‘Tis so,’
When it proved otherwise?
KING CLAUDIUS

Not that I know.
LORD POLONIUS

[Pointing to his head and shoulder]
Take this from this, if this be otherwise:
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.
KING CLAUDIUS

How may we try it further?
LORD POLONIUS

You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

So he does indeed.
LORD POLONIUS

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him:
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
KING CLAUDIUS

We will try it.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
LORD POLONIUS

Away, I do beseech you, both away:
I’ll board him presently.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, and Attendants
Enter HAMLET, reading
O, give me leave:
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
HAMLET

Well, God-a-mercy.
LORD POLONIUS

Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET

Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
LORD POLONIUS

Not I, my lord.
HAMLET

Then I would you were so honest a man.
LORD POLONIUS

Honest, my lord!
HAMLET

Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be
one man picked out of ten thousand.
LORD POLONIUS

That’s very true, my lord.
HAMLET

For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a
god kissing carrion,–Have you a daughter?
LORD POLONIUS

I have, my lord.
HAMLET

Let her not walk i’ the sun: conception is a
blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive.
Friend, look to ‘t.
LORD POLONIUS

[Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my
daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I
was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for
love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.
What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET

Words, words, words.
LORD POLONIUS

What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET

Between who?
LORD POLONIUS

I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET

Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and
plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet
I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab
you could go backward.
LORD POLONIUS

[Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method
in ‘t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET

Into my grave.
LORD POLONIUS

Indeed, that is out o’ the air.
Aside
How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness
that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity
could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will
leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of
meeting between him and my daughter.–My honourable
lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
HAMLET

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will
more willingly part withal: except my life, except
my life, except my life.
LORD POLONIUS

Fare you well, my lord.
HAMLET

These tedious old fools!
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
LORD POLONIUS

You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
ROSENCRANTZ

[To POLONIUS] God save you, sir!
Exit POLONIUS
GUILDENSTERN

My honoured lord!
ROSENCRANTZ

My most dear lord!
HAMLET

My excellent good friends! How dost thou,
Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?
ROSENCRANTZ

As the indifferent children of the earth.
GUILDENSTERN

Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On fortune’s cap we are not the very button.
HAMLET

Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENCRANTZ

Neither, my lord.
HAMLET

Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of
her favours?
GUILDENSTERN

‘Faith, her privates we.
HAMLET

In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she
is a strumpet. What’s the news?
ROSENCRANTZ

None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
HAMLET

Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular: what have you,
my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune,
that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENSTERN

Prison, my lord!
HAMLET

Denmark’s a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ

Then is the world one.
HAMLET

A goodly one; in which there are many confines,
wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ

We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET

Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ

Why then, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too
narrow for your mind.
HAMLET

O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN

Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET

A dream itself is but a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ

Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
HAMLET

Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we
to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
ROSENCRANTZ

GUILDENSTERN

We’ll wait upon you.
HAMLET

No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest
man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?
ROSENCRANTZ

To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.
HAMLET

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it
your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come,
deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENSTERN

What should we say, my lord?
HAMLET

Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were sent
for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks
which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
I know the good king and queen have sent for you.
ROSENCRANTZ

To what end, my lord?
HAMLET

That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of
our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for, or no?
ROSENCRANTZ

[Aside to GUILDENSTERN] What say you?
HAMLET

[Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.–If you
love me, hold not off.
GUILDENSTERN

My lord, we were sent for.
HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late–but
wherefore I know not–lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.
ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
HAMLET

Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘man delights not me’?
ROSENCRANTZ

To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what
lenten entertainment the players shall receive from
you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they
coming, to offer you service.
HAMLET

He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty
shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight
shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not
sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part
in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickled o’ the sere; and the lady shall
say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
for’t. What players are they?
ROSENCRANTZ

Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
tragedians of the city.
HAMLET

How chances it they travel? their residence, both
in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZ

I think their inhibition comes by the means of the
late innovation.
HAMLET

Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
in the city? are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZ

No, indeed, are they not.
HAMLET

How comes it? do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZ

Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but
there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases,
that cry out on the top of question, and are most
tyrannically clapped for’t: these are now the
fashion, and so berattle the common stages–so they
call them–that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.
HAMLET

What, are they children? who maintains ’em? how are
they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no
longer than they can sing? will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
players–as it is most like, if their means are no
better–their writers do them wrong, to make them
exclaim against their own succession?
ROSENCRANTZ

‘Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and
the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to
controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid
for argument, unless the poet and the player went to
cuffs in the question.
HAMLET

Is’t possible?
GUILDENSTERN

O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
HAMLET

Do the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZ

Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.
HAMLET

It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of
Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while
my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an
hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
‘Sblood, there is something in this more than
natural, if philosophy could find it out.
Flourish of trumpets within
GUILDENSTERN

There are the players.
HAMLET

Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands,
come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion
and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb,
lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you,
must show fairly outward, should more appear like
entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my
uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.
GUILDENSTERN

In what, my dear lord?
HAMLET

I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS

Well be with you, gentlemen!
HAMLET

Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a
hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet
out of his swaddling-clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ

Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they
say an old man is twice a child.
HAMLET

I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players;
mark it. You say right, sir: o’ Monday morning;
’twas so indeed.
LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET

My lord, I have news to tell you.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome,–
LORD POLONIUS

The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET

Buz, buz!
LORD POLONIUS

Upon mine honour,–
HAMLET

Then came each actor on his ass,–
LORD POLONIUS

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
liberty, these are the only men.
HAMLET

O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
LORD POLONIUS

What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET

Why,
‘One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.’
LORD POLONIUS

[Aside] Still on my daughter.
HAMLET

Am I not i’ the right, old Jephthah?
LORD POLONIUS

If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter
that I love passing well.
HAMLET

Nay, that follows not.
LORD POLONIUS

What follows, then, my lord?
HAMLET

Why,
‘As by lot, God wot,’
and then, you know,
‘It came to pass, as most like it was,’–
the first row of the pious chanson will show you
more; for look, where my abridgement comes.
Enter four or five Players
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad
to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old
friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last:
comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young
lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is
nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the
altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like
apiece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en
to’t like French falconers, fly at any thing we see:
we’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste
of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
First Player

What speech, my lord?
HAMLET

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas
caviare to the general: but it was–as I received
it, and others, whose judgments in such matters
cried in the top of mine–an excellent play, well
digested in the scenes, set down with as much
modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there
were no sallets in the lines to make the matter
savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might
indict the author of affectation; but called it an
honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very
much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I
chiefly loved: ’twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido; and
thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of
Priam’s slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin
at this line: let me see, let me see–
‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,’–
it is not so:–it begins with Pyrrhus:–
‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick’d
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light
To their lord’s murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.’
So, proceed you.
LORD POLONIUS

‘Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and
good discretion.
First Player

‘Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: unequal match’d,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for, lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick:
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.
But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
On Mars’s armour forged for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod ‘take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!’
LORD POLONIUS

This is too long.
HAMLET

It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee,
say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he
sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.
First Player

‘But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen–‘
HAMLET

‘The mobled queen?’
LORD POLONIUS

That’s good; ‘mobled queen’ is good.
First Player

‘Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have
pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.’
LORD POLONIUS

Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has
tears in’s eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET

‘Tis well: I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon.
Good my lord, will you see the players well
bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for
they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the
time: after your death you were better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.
LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET

God’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man
after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.
LORD POLONIUS

Come, sirs.
HAMLET

Follow him, friends: we’ll hear a play to-morrow.
Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First
Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
First Player

Ay, my lord.
HAMLET

We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need,
study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which
I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?
First Player

Ay, my lord.
HAMLET

Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him
not.
Exit First Player
My good friends, I’ll leave you till night: you are
welcome to Elsinore.
ROSENCRANTZ

Good my lord!
HAMLET

Ay, so, God be wi’ ye;
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann’d,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
‘Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I’ll have grounds
More relative than this: the play ‘s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
Exit

ACT III
SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS

And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ

He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN

Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ

Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN

But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ

Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Did you assay him?
To any pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ

Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o’er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
LORD POLONIUS

‘Tis most true:
And he beseech’d me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
KING CLAUDIUS

With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ

We shall, my lord.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia:
Her father and myself, lawful espials,
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If ‘t be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
OPHELIA

Madam, I wish it may.
Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE
LORD POLONIUS

Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.
To OPHELIA
Read on this book;
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,–
‘Tis too much proved–that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.
KING CLAUDIUS

[Aside] O, ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
LORD POLONIUS

I hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET

To be, or not to be, that is the question,
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
OPHELIA

Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET

I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
OPHELIA

My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET

No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA

My honour’d lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET

Ha, ha! are you honest?
OPHELIA

My lord?
HAMLET

Are you fair?
OPHELIA

What means your lordship?
HAMLET

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
HAMLET

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET

You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.
OPHELIA

I was the more deceived.
HAMLET

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where’s your father?
OPHELIA

At home, my lord.
HAMLET

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in’s own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA

O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for
thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a
nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA

O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
has given you one face, and you make yourselves
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nick-name God’s creatures, and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
those that are married already, all but one, shall
live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go.
Exit
OPHELIA

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
KING CLAUDIUS

Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul,
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute
Haply the seas and countries different
With variable objects shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?
LORD POLONIUS

It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;
And I’ll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
KING CLAUDIUS

It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and Players
HAMLET

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
First Player

I warrant your honour.
HAMLET

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o’erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature’s journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
First Player

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,
sir.
HAMLET

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question of the play be then to be considered:
that’s villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.
Exeunt Players
Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?
LORD POLONIUS

And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET

Bid the players make haste.
Exit POLONIUS
Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ

GUILDENSTERN

We will, my lord.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
HAMLET

What ho! Horatio!
Enter HORATIO
HORATIO

Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET

Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation coped withal.
HORATIO

O, my dear lord,–
HAMLET

Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal’d thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.–Something too much of this.–
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO

Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And ‘scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET

They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.
Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
KING CLAUDIUS

How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET

Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat
the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.
KING CLAUDIUS

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words
are not mine.
HAMLET

No, nor mine now.
To POLONIUS
My lord, you played once i’ the university, you say?
LORD POLONIUS

That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
HAMLET

What did you enact?
LORD POLONIUS

I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i’ the
Capitol; Brutus killed me.
HAMLET

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
there. Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ

Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET

No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.
LORD POLONIUS

[To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Lying down at OPHELIA’s feet
OPHELIA

No, my lord.
HAMLET

I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.
HAMLET

Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA

I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET

That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA

What is, my lord?
HAMLET

Nothing.
OPHELIA

You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET

Who, I?
OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.
HAMLET

O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
OPHELIA

Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for
I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two
months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s
hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half
a year: but, by’r lady, he must build churches,
then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with
the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for, O,
the hobby-horse is forgot.’
Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love
Exeunt
OPHELIA

What means this, my lord?
HAMLET

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPHELIA

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Enter Prologue
HAMLET

We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot
keep counsel; they’ll tell all.
OPHELIA

Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET

Ay, or any show that you’ll show him: be not you
ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.
OPHELIA

You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.
Prologue

For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
Exit
HAMLET

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA

‘Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET

As woman’s love.
Enter two Players, King and Queen
Player King

Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
Player Queen

So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women’s fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
Player King

‘Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou–
Player Queen

O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.
HAMLET

[Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.
Player Queen

The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
Player King

I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
Player Queen

Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET

If she should break it now!
Player King

‘Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
Sleeps
Player Queen

Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
Exit
HAMLET

Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

The lady protests too much, methinks.
HAMLET

O, but she’ll keep her word.
KING CLAUDIUS

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in ‘t?
HAMLET

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence
i’ the world.
KING CLAUDIUS

What do you call the play?
HAMLET

The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play
is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is
the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see
anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’
that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it
touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our
withers are unwrung.
Enter LUCIANUS
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA

You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET

I could interpret between you and your love, if I
could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET

It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.
OPHELIA

Still better, and worse.
HAMLET

So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
‘the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.’
LUCIANUS

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears
HAMLET

He poisons him i’ the garden for’s estate. His
name’s Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in
choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer
gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
OPHELIA

The king rises.
HAMLET

What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS

Give o’er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS

Give me some light: away!
All

Lights, lights, lights!
Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers– if
the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me–with two
Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a
fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO

Half a share.
HAMLET

A whole one, I.
For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very–pajock.
HORATIO

You might have rhymed.
HAMLET

O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a
thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO

Very well, my lord.
HAMLET

Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO

I did very well note him.
HAMLET

Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!
Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
GUILDENSTERN

Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET

Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN

The king, sir,–
HAMLET

Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN

Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET

With drink, sir?
GUILDENSTERN

No, my lord, rather with choler.
HAMLET

Your wisdom should show itself more richer to
signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him
to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far
more choler.
GUILDENSTERN

Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and
start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET

I am tame, sir: pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN

The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of
spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET

You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN

Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right
breed. If it shall please you to make me a
wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s
commandment: if not, your pardon and my return
shall be the end of my business.
HAMLET

Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN

What, my lord?
HAMLET

Make you a wholesome answer; my wit’s diseased: but,
sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command;
or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no
more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,–
ROSENCRANTZ

Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her
into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET

O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But
is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s
admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ

She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you
go to bed.
HAMLET

We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have
you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET

So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ

Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you
do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if
you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET

Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ

How can that be, when you have the voice of the king
himself for your succession in Denmark?
HAMLET

Ay, but sir, ‘While the grass grows,’–the proverb
is something musty.
Re-enter Players with recorders
O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with
you:–why do you go about to recover the wind of me,
as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN

O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly.
HAMLET

I do not well understand that. Will you play upon
this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN

My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET

I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN

Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET

I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN

I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET

‘Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with
your lingers and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN

But these cannot I command to any utterance of
harmony; I have not the skill.
HAMLET

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of
me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass: and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot
you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am
easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what
instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you
cannot play upon me.
Enter POLONIUS
God bless you, sir!
LORD POLONIUS

My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.
HAMLET

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
LORD POLONIUS

By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET

Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS

It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET

Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS

Very like a whale.
HAMLET

Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
LORD POLONIUS

I will say so.
HAMLET

By and by is easily said.
Exit POLONIUS
Leave me, friends.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!
Exit

SCENE III. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS

I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.
GUILDENSTERN

We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
ROSENCRANTZ

The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What’s near it with it: it is a massy wheel,
Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin’d; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
KING CLAUDIUS

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
ROSENCRANTZ

GUILDENSTERN

We will haste us.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Enter POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS

My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet:
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she’ll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
KING CLAUDIUS

Thanks, dear my lord.
Exit POLONIUS
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but ’tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
Retires and kneels
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
‘Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season’d for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS

[Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Exit

SCENE IV. The Queen’s closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS

He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen’d and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
HAMLET

[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

I’ll warrant you,
Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.
POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET

Now, mother, what’s the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET

What’s the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?
HAMLET

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife;
And–would it were not so!–you are my mother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET

Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET

[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Makes a pass through the arras
LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!
HAMLET

Ay, lady, ’twas my word.
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass’d it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET

Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers’ oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven’s face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
HAMLET

Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew’d ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex’d; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thrall’d
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
HAMLET

Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,–
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET

A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

No more!
HAMLET

A king of shreds and patches,–
Enter Ghost
Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, he’s mad!
HAMLET

Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? O, say!
Ghost

Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
HAMLET

How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
HAMLET

On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET

Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET

Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET

Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Exit Ghost
QUEEN GERTRUDE

This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
HAMLET

Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter’d: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
HAMLET

O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle’s bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless’d,
I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

What shall I do?
HAMLET

Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. ‘Twere good you let him know;
For who, that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house’s top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
HAMLET

I must to England; you know that?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack,
I had forgot: ’tis so concluded on.
HAMLET

There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and ‘t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, ’tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:
I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS

ACT IV
SCENE I. A room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS

There’s matter in these sighs, these profound heaves:
You must translate: ’tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Bestow this place on us a little while.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
KING CLAUDIUS

What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, ‘A rat, a rat!’
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.
KING CLAUDIUS

O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there:
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrain’d and out of haunt,
This mad young man: but so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of Life. Where is he gone?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

To draw apart the body he hath kill’d:
O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
KING CLAUDIUS

O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!
Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him:
Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what’s untimely done. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Another room in the castle.

Enter HAMLET
HAMLET

Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ:

GUILDENSTERN:

[Within] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET

What noise? who calls on Hamlet?
O, here they come.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
ROSENCRANTZ

What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET

Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ

Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET

Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ

Believe what?
HAMLET

That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what
replication should be made by the son of a king?
ROSENCRANTZ

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET

Ay, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance, his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
king best service in the end: he keeps them, like
an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to
be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ

I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET

I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go
with us to the king.
HAMLET

The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The king is a thing–
GUILDENSTERN

A thing, my lord!
HAMLET

Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, attended
KING CLAUDIUS

I have sent to seek him, and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where tis so, the offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
Enter ROSENCRANTZ
How now! what hath befall’n?
ROSENCRANTZ

Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
We cannot get from him.
KING CLAUDIUS

But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ

Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
KING CLAUDIUS

Bring him before us.
ROSENCRANTZ

Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAMLET

At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS

At supper! where?
HAMLET

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that’s the end.
KING CLAUDIUS

Alas, alas!
HAMLET

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING CLAUDIUS

What dost you mean by this?
HAMLET

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING CLAUDIUS

Where is Polonius?
HAMLET

In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
find him not there, seek him i’ the other place
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.
KING CLAUDIUS

Go seek him there.
To some Attendants
HAMLET

He will stay till ye come.
Exeunt Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS

Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,–
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,–must send thee hence
With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
The associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.
HAMLET

For England!
KING CLAUDIUS

Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET

Good.
KING CLAUDIUS

So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
HAMLET

I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for
England! Farewell, dear mother.
KING CLAUDIUS

Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET

My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man
and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS

Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I’ll have him hence to-night:
Away! for every thing is seal’d and done
That else leans on the affair: pray you, make haste.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught–
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us–thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me: till I know ’tis done,
Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
Exit

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.
Captain

I will do’t, my lord.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Go softly on.
Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers
Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others
HAMLET

Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain

They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET

How purposed, sir, I pray you?
Captain

Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET

Who commands them, sir?
Captain

The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain

Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET

Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain

Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain

God be wi’ you, sir.
Exit
ROSENCRANTZ

Wilt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET

I’ll be with you straight go a little before.
Exeunt all except HAMLET
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Exit

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman
QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will not speak with her.
Gentleman

She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

What would she have?
Gentleman

She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
HORATIO

‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Let her come in.
Exit HORATIO
To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA
OPHELIA

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

How now, Ophelia!
OPHELIA

[Sings]
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA

Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
Sings
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, but, Ophelia,–
OPHELIA

Pray you, mark.
Sings
White his shroud as the mountain snow,–
Enter KING CLAUDIUS
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, look here, my lord.
OPHELIA

[Sings]
Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
KING CLAUDIUS

How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA

Well, God ‘ild you! They say the owl was a baker’s
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. God be at your table!
KING CLAUDIUS

Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA

Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this:
Sings
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS

Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA

Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t:
Sings
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
KING CLAUDIUS

How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA

I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i’ the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS

Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.
Exit HORATIO
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
A noise within
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack, what noise is this?
KING CLAUDIUS

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter another Gentleman
What is the matter?
Gentleman

Save yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry ‘Choose we: Laertes shall be king:’
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!’
QUEEN GERTRUDE

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
KING CLAUDIUS

The doors are broke.
Noise within
Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following
LAERTES

Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes

No, let’s come in.
LAERTES

I pray you, give me leave.
Danes

We will, we will.
They retire without the door
LAERTES

I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES

That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
KING CLAUDIUS

What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
LAERTES

Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS

Dead.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

But not by him.
KING CLAUDIUS

Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES

How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS

Who shall stay you?
LAERTES

My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS

Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES

None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS

Will you know them then?
LAERTES

To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
KING CLAUDIUS

Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
Danes

[Within] Let her come in.
LAERTES

How now! what noise is that?
Re-enter OPHELIA
O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits
Should be as moral as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
OPHELIA

[Sings]
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:–
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES

Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA

[Sings]
You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master’s daughter.
LAERTES

This nothing’s more than matter.
OPHELIA

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts.
LAERTES

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA

There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue
for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There’s a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,–
Sings
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA

[Sings]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi’ ye.
Exit
LAERTES

Do you see this, O God?
KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge ‘twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
LAERTES

Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral–
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation–
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call’t in question.
KING CLAUDIUS

So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.
Exeunt

SCENE VI. Another room in the castle.

Enter HORATIO and a Servant
HORATIO

What are they that would speak with me?
Servant

Sailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.
HORATIO

Let them come in.
Exit Servant
I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
Enter Sailors
First Sailor

God bless you, sir.
HORATIO

Let him bless thee too.
First Sailor

He shall, sir, an’t please him. There’s a letter for
you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was
bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am
let to know it is.
HORATIO

[Reads] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked
this, give these fellows some means to the king:
they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on
a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded
them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so
I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with
me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they
did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king
have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me
with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I
have words to speak in thine ear will make thee
dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of
the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their
course for England: of them I have much to tell
thee. Farewell.
‘He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’
Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.
Exeunt

SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES
KING CLAUDIUS

Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.
LAERTES

It well appears: but tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr’d up.
KING CLAUDIUS

O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself–
My virtue or my plague, be it either which–
She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim’d them.
LAERTES

And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections: but my revenge will come.
KING CLAUDIUS

Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
I loved your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine–
Enter a Messenger
How now! what news?
Messenger

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
KING CLAUDIUS

From Hamlet! who brought them?
Messenger

Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given me by Claudio; he received them
Of him that brought them.
KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.
Exit Messenger
Reads
‘High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on
your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see
your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your
pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden
and more strange return. ‘HAMLET.’
What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
LAERTES

Know you the hand?
KING CLAUDIUS

‘Tis Hamlets character. ‘Naked!
And in a postscript here, he says ‘alone.’
Can you advise me?
LAERTES

I’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come;
It warms the very sickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
‘Thus didest thou.’
KING CLAUDIUS

If it be so, Laertes–
As how should it be so? how otherwise?–
Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES

Ay, my lord;
So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
KING CLAUDIUS

To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall:
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practise
And call it accident.
LAERTES

My lord, I will be ruled;
The rather, if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
KING CLAUDIUS

It falls right.
You have been talk’d of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.
LAERTES

What part is that, my lord?
KING CLAUDIUS

A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness. Two months since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy:–
I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,
And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in’t; he grew unto his seat;
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast: so far he topp’d my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.
LAERTES

A Norman was’t?
KING CLAUDIUS

A Norman.
LAERTES

Upon my life, Lamond.
KING CLAUDIUS

The very same.
LAERTES

I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
KING CLAUDIUS

He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defence
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out, ‘twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,
He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o’er, to play with him.
Now, out of this,–
LAERTES

What out of this, my lord?
KING CLAUDIUS

Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?
LAERTES

Why ask you this?
KING CLAUDIUS

Not that I think you did not love your father;
But that I know love is begun by time;
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a plurisy,
Dies in his own too much: that we would do
We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o’ the ulcer:–
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
To show yourself your father’s son in deed
More than in words?
LAERTES

To cut his throat i’ the church.
KING CLAUDIUS

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home:
We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise
Requite him for your father.
LAERTES

I will do’t:
And, for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch’d withal: I’ll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
KING CLAUDIUS

Let’s further think of this;
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
‘Twere better not assay’d: therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:
We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha’t.
When in your motion you are hot and dry–
As make your bouts more violent to that end–
And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him
A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE
How now, sweet queen!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow; your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.
LAERTES

Drown’d! O, where?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES

Alas, then, she is drown’d?
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Drown’d, drown’d.
LAERTES

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS

Let’s follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let’s follow.
Exeunt

ACT V
SCENE I. A churchyard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, & c
First Clown

Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?
Second Clown

I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
Christian burial.
First Clown

How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
own defence?
Second Clown

Why, ’tis found so.
First Clown

It must be ‘se offendendo;’ it cannot be else. For
here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.
Second Clown

Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,–
First Clown

Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
goes,–mark you that; but if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown

But is this law?
First Clown

Ay, marry, is’t; crowner’s quest law.
Second Clown

Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’
Christian burial.
First Clown

Why, there thou say’st: and the more pity that
great folk should have countenance in this world to
drown or hang themselves, more than their even
Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
they hold up Adam’s profession.
Second Clown

Was he a gentleman?
First Clown

He was the first that ever bore arms.
Second Clown

Why, he had none.
First Clown

What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
Scripture? The Scripture says ‘Adam digged:’
could he dig without arms? I’ll put another
question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself–
Second Clown

Go to.
First Clown

What is he that builds stronger than either the
mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
Second Clown

The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.
First Clown

I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
does well; but how does it well? it does well to
those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come.
Second Clown

‘Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
a carpenter?’
First Clown

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
Second Clown

Marry, now I can tell.
First Clown

To’t.
Second Clown

Mass, I cannot tell.
Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance
First Clown

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
you are asked this question next, say ‘a
grave-maker: ‘the houses that he makes last till
doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
stoup of liquor.
Exit Second Clown
He digs and sings
In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.
HAMLET

Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
sings at grave-making?
HORATIO

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
HAMLET

‘Tis e’en so: the hand of little employment hath
the daintier sense.
First Clown

[Sings]
But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw’d me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.
Throws up a skull
HAMLET

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
now o’er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
might it not?
HORATIO

It might, my lord.
HAMLET

Or of a courtier; which could say ‘Good morrow,
sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might
be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
such-a-one’s horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?
HORATIO

Ay, my lord.
HAMLET

Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and
knocked about the mazzard with a sexton’s spade:
here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to
see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
but to play at loggats with ’em? mine ache to think on’t.
First Clown

[Sings]
A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
Throws up another skull
HAMLET

There’s another: why may not that be the skull of a
lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO

Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET

Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORATIO

Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET

They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
grave’s this, sirrah?
First Clown

Mine, sir.
Sings
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLET

I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in’t.
First Clown

You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore it is not
yours: for my part, I do not lie in’t, and yet it is mine.
HAMLET

‘Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine:
’tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
First Clown

‘Tis a quick lie, sir; ’twill away gain, from me to
you.
HAMLET

What man dost thou dig it for?
First Clown

For no man, sir.
HAMLET

What woman, then?
First Clown

For none, neither.
HAMLET

Who is to be buried in’t?
First Clown

One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.
HAMLET

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
grave-maker?
First Clown

Of all the days i’ the year, I came to’t that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
HAMLET

How long is that since?
First Clown

Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET

Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
First Clown

Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.
HAMLET

Why?
First Clown

‘Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.
HAMLET

How came he mad?
First Clown

Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET

How strangely?
First Clown

Faith, e’en with losing his wits.
HAMLET

Upon what ground?
First Clown

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.
HAMLET

How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
First Clown

I’ faith, if he be not rotten before he die–as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in–he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET

Why he more than another?
First Clown

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
Here’s a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.
HAMLET

Whose was it?
First Clown

A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?
HAMLET

Nay, I know not.
First Clown

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a’ poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick’s skull, the king’s jester.
HAMLET

This?
First Clown

E’en that.
HAMLET

Let me see.
Takes the skull
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.
HORATIO

What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET

Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’
the earth?
HORATIO

E’en so.
HAMLET

And smelt so? pah!
Puts down the skull
HORATIO

E’en so, my lord.
HAMLET

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
HORATIO

‘Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
HAMLET

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & c
The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life: ’twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.
Retiring with HORATIO
LAERTES

What ceremony else?
HAMLET

That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.
LAERTES

What ceremony else?
First Priest

Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
Yet here she is allow’d her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
LAERTES

Must there no more be done?
First Priest

No more be done:
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES

Lay her i’ the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET

What, the fair Ophelia!
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
Scattering flowers
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.
LAERTES

O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
Leaps into the grave
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
HAMLET

[Advancing] What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
Leaps into the grave
LAERTES

The devil take thy soul!
Grappling with him
HAMLET

Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
KING CLAUDIUS

Pluck them asunder.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, Hamlet!
All

Gentlemen,–
HORATIO

Good my lord, be quiet.
The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave
HAMLET

Why I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

O my son, what theme?
HAMLET

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
KING CLAUDIUS

O, he is mad, Laertes.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

For love of God, forbear him.
HAMLET

‘Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo’t tear thyself?
Woo’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET

Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Exit HORATIO
To LAERTES
Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
We’ll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET

So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?
HORATIO

Remember it, my lord?
HAMLET

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,–
HORATIO

That is most certain.
HAMLET

Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,–
O royal knavery!–an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark’s health and England’s too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.
HORATIO

Is’t possible?
HAMLET

Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
HORATIO

I beseech you.
HAMLET

Being thus be-netted round with villanies,–
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play–I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair and labour’d much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?
HORATIO

Ay, good my lord.
HAMLET

An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘As’es of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.
HORATIO

How was this seal’d?
HAMLET

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave’t the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know’st already.
HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.
HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.
HORATIO

Why, what a king is this!
HAMLET

Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon–
He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,
Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage–is’t not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
HORATIO

It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.
HAMLET

It will be short: the interim is mine;
And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One.’
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his: I’ll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
HORATIO

Peace! who comes here?
Enter OSRIC
OSRIC

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET

I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
HORATIO

No, my good lord.
HAMLET

Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
the king’s mess: ’tis a chough; but, as I say,
spacious in the possession of dirt.
OSRIC

Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
HAMLET

I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head.
OSRIC

I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
HAMLET

No, believe me, ’tis very cold; the wind is
northerly.
OSRIC

It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
HAMLET

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion.
OSRIC

Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,–as
’twere,–I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,–
HAMLET

I beseech you, remember–
HAMLET moves him to put on his hat
OSRIC

Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing:
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.
HAMLET

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
him, his umbrage, nothing more.
OSRIC

Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
HAMLET

The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?
OSRIC

Sir?
HORATIO

Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will do’t, sir, really.
HAMLET

What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
OSRIC

Of Laertes?
HORATIO

His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent.
HAMLET

Of him, sir.
OSRIC

I know you are not ignorant–
HAMLET

I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
OSRIC

You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is–
HAMLET

I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to
know himself.
OSRIC

I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.
HAMLET

What’s his weapon?
OSRIC

Rapier and dagger.
HAMLET

That’s two of his weapons: but, well.
OSRIC

The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
HAMLET

What call you the carriages?
HORATIO

I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
OSRIC

The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
HAMLET

The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might
be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
against six French swords, their assigns, and three
liberal-conceited carriages; that’s the French bet
against the Danish. Why is this ‘imponed,’ as you call it?
OSRIC

The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.
HAMLET

How if I answer ‘no’?
OSRIC

I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
HAMLET

Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, ’tis the breathing time of day with me; let
the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
OSRIC

Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?
HAMLET

To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
OSRIC

I commend my duty to your lordship.
HAMLET

Yours, yours.
Exit OSRIC
He does well to commend it himself; there are no
tongues else for’s turn.
HORATIO

This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
HAMLET

He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he–and many more of the same bevy that I
know the dressy age dotes on–only got the tune of
the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
yesty collection, which carries them through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
Enter a Lord
Lord

My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.
HAMLET

I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king’s
pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
Lord

The king and queen and all are coming down.
HAMLET

In happy time.
Lord

The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
HAMLET

She well instructs me.
Exit Lord
HORATIO

You will lose this wager, my lord.
HAMLET

I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here
about my heart: but it is no matter.
HORATIO

Nay, good my lord,–
HAMLET

It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
HORATIO

If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.
HAMLET

Not a whit, we defy augury: there’s a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, Lords, OSRIC, and Attendants with foils, & c
KING CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES’ hand into HAMLET’s
HAMLET

Give me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong;
But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house,
And hurt my brother.
LAERTES

I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
I have a voice and precedent of peace,
To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
I do receive your offer’d love like love,
And will not wrong it.
HAMLET

I embrace it freely;
And will this brother’s wager frankly play.
Give us the foils. Come on.
LAERTES

Come, one for me.
HAMLET

I’ll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i’ the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.
LAERTES

You mock me, sir.
HAMLET

No, by this hand.
KING CLAUDIUS

Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?
HAMLET

Very well, my lord
Your grace hath laid the odds o’ the weaker side.
KING CLAUDIUS

I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.
LAERTES

This is too heavy, let me see another.
HAMLET

This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
They prepare to play
OSRIC

Ay, my good lord.
KING CLAUDIUS

Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
The king shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
‘Now the king dunks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin:
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
HAMLET

Come on, sir.
LAERTES

Come, my lord.
They play
HAMLET

One.
LAERTES

No.
HAMLET

Judgment.
OSRIC

A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES

Well; again.
KING CLAUDIUS

Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here’s to thy health.
Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within
Give him the cup.
HAMLET

I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
They play
Another hit; what say you?
LAERTES

A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING CLAUDIUS

Our son shall win.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

He’s fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET

Good madam!
KING CLAUDIUS

Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
KING CLAUDIUS

[Aside] It is the poison’d cup: it is too late.
HAMLET

I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES

My lord, I’ll hit him now.
KING CLAUDIUS

I do not think’t.
LAERTES

[Aside] And yet ’tis almost ‘gainst my conscience.
HAMLET

Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES

Say you so? come on.
They play
OSRIC

Nothing, neither way.
LAERTES

Have at you now!
LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES
KING CLAUDIUS

Part them; they are incensed.
HAMLET

Nay, come, again.
QUEEN GERTRUDE falls
OSRIC

Look to the queen there, ho!
HORATIO

They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
OSRIC

How is’t, Laertes?
LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.
HAMLET

How does the queen?
KING CLAUDIUS

She swounds to see them bleed.
QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, no, the drink, the drink,–O my dear Hamlet,–
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.
Dies
HAMLET

O villany! Ho! let the door be lock’d:
Treachery! Seek it out.
LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom’d: the foul practise
Hath turn’d itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother’s poison’d:
I can no more: the king, the king’s to blame.
HAMLET

The point!–envenom’d too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
Stabs KING CLAUDIUS
All

Treason! treason!
KING CLAUDIUS

O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
HAMLET

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
KING CLAUDIUS dies
LAERTES

He is justly served;
It is a poison temper’d by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.
Dies
HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time–as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest–O, I could tell you–
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
HORATIO

Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
Here’s yet some liquor left.
HAMLET

As thou’rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I’ll have’t.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
March afar off, and shot within
What warlike noise is this?
OSRIC

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.
HAMLET

O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
Dies
HORATIO

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?
March within
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Where is this sight?
HORATIO

What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
First Ambassador

The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO

Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
HORATIO

Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform’d,
Even while men’s minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off

Richard III: Entire Play
The Life and Death of Richard the Third

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| Richard III
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ACT I
SCENE I. London. A street.

Enter GLOUCESTER, solus
GLOUCESTER

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up,
About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
Clarence comes.
Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY
Brother, good day; what means this armed guard
That waits upon your grace?
CLARENCE

His majesty
Tendering my person’s safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
GLOUCESTER

Upon what cause?
CLARENCE

Because my name is George.
GLOUCESTER

Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;
He should, for that, commit your godfathers:
O, belike his majesty hath some intent
That you shall be new-christen’d in the Tower.
But what’s the matter, Clarence? may I know?
CLARENCE

Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest
As yet I do not: but, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G.
And says a wizard told him that by G
His issue disinherited should be;
And, for my name of George begins with G,
It follows in his thought that I am he.
These, as I learn, and such like toys as these
Have moved his highness to commit me now.
GLOUCESTER

Why, this it is, when men are ruled by women:
‘Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:
My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, ’tis she
That tempers him to this extremity.
Was it not she and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodville, her brother there,
That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
From whence this present day he is deliver’d?
We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.
CLARENCE

By heaven, I think there’s no man is secure
But the queen’s kindred and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.
Heard ye not what an humble suppliant
Lord hastings was to her for his delivery?
GLOUCESTER

Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty.
I’ll tell you what; I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the king,
To be her men and wear her livery:
The jealous o’erworn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubb’d them gentlewomen.
Are mighty gossips in this monarchy.
BRAKENBURY

I beseech your graces both to pardon me;
His majesty hath straitly given in charge
That no man shall have private conference,
Of what degree soever, with his brother.
GLOUCESTER

Even so; an’t please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak no treason, man: we say the king
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the queen’s kindred are made gentle-folks:
How say you sir? Can you deny all this?
BRAKENBURY

With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.
GLOUCESTER

Naught to do with mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow,
He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
Were best he do it secretly, alone.
BRAKENBURY

What one, my lord?
GLOUCESTER

Her husband, knave: wouldst thou betray me?
BRAKENBURY

I beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal
Forbear your conference with the noble duke.
CLARENCE

We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
GLOUCESTER

We are the queen’s abjects, and must obey.
Brother, farewell: I will unto the king;
And whatsoever you will employ me in,
Were it to call King Edward’s widow sister,
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
CLARENCE

I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
GLOUCESTER

Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;
Meantime, have patience.
CLARENCE

I must perforce. Farewell.
Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and Guard
GLOUCESTER

Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.
Simple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.
But who comes here? the new-deliver’d Hastings?
Enter HASTINGS
HASTINGS

Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
GLOUCESTER

As much unto my good lord chamberlain!
Well are you welcome to the open air.
How hath your lordship brook’d imprisonment?
HASTINGS

With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks
That were the cause of my imprisonment.
GLOUCESTER

No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;
For they that were your enemies are his,
And have prevail’d as much on him as you.
HASTINGS

More pity that the eagle should be mew’d,
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
GLOUCESTER

What news abroad?
HASTINGS

No news so bad abroad as this at home;
The King is sickly, weak and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.
GLOUCESTER

Now, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.
O, he hath kept an evil diet long,
And overmuch consumed his royal person:
‘Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
What, is he in his bed?
HASTINGS

He is.
GLOUCESTER

Go you before, and I will follow you.
Exit HASTINGS
He cannot live, I hope; and must not die
Till George be pack’d with post-horse up to heaven.
I’ll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel’d with weighty arguments;
And, if I fall not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live:
Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!
For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.
What though I kill’d her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love
As for another secret close intent,
By marrying her which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:
Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
Exit

SCENE II. The same. Another street.

Enter the corpse of KING HENRY the Sixth, Gentlemen with halberds to guard it; LADY ANNE being the mourner
LADY ANNE

Set down, set down your honourable load,
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter’d son,
Stabb’d by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
Cursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!
Cursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom’d thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her he made
A miserable by the death of him
As I am made by my poor lord and thee!
Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul’s to be interred there;
And still, as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry’s corse.
Enter GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER

Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.
LADY ANNE

What black magician conjures up this fiend,
To stop devoted charitable deeds?
GLOUCESTER

Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,
I’ll make a corse of him that disobeys.
Gentleman

My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.
GLOUCESTER

Unmanner’d dog! stand thou, when I command:
Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,
Or, by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
LADY ANNE

What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,
His soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.
GLOUCESTER

Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
LADY ANNE

Foul devil, for God’s sake, hence, and trouble us not;
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill’d it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry’s wounds
Open their congeal’d mouths and bleed afresh!
Blush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,
Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
O God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!
O earth, which this blood drink’st revenge his death!
Either heaven with lightning strike the
murderer dead,
Or earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,
As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood
Which his hell-govern’d arm hath butchered!
GLOUCESTER

Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
LADY ANNE

Villain, thou know’st no law of God nor man:
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
GLOUCESTER

But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
LADY ANNE

O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
GLOUCESTER

More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposed-evils, to give me leave,
By circumstance, but to acquit myself.
LADY ANNE

Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,
For these known evils, but to give me leave,
By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.
GLOUCESTER

Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
LADY ANNE

Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No excuse current, but to hang thyself.
GLOUCESTER

By such despair, I should accuse myself.
LADY ANNE

And, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
Which didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
GLOUCESTER

Say that I slew them not?
LADY ANNE

Why, then they are not dead:
But dead they are, and devilish slave, by thee.
GLOUCESTER

I did not kill your husband.
LADY ANNE

Why, then he is alive.
GLOUCESTER

Nay, he is dead; and slain by Edward’s hand.
LADY ANNE

In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw
Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
GLOUCESTER

I was provoked by her slanderous tongue,
which laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
LADY ANNE

Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.
Which never dreamt on aught but butcheries:
Didst thou not kill this king?
GLOUCESTER

I grant ye.
LADY ANNE

Dost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
GLOUCESTER

The fitter for the King of heaven, that hath him.
LADY ANNE

He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
GLOUCESTER

Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither;
For he was fitter for that place than earth.
LADY ANNE

And thou unfit for any place but hell.
GLOUCESTER

Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
LADY ANNE

Some dungeon.
GLOUCESTER

Your bed-chamber.
LADY ANNE

Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
GLOUCESTER

So will it, madam till I lie with you.
LADY ANNE

I hope so.
GLOUCESTER

I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
And fall somewhat into a slower method,
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?
LADY ANNE

Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect.
GLOUCESTER

Your beauty was the cause of that effect;
Your beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
LADY ANNE

If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
GLOUCESTER

These eyes could never endure sweet beauty’s wreck;
You should not blemish it, if I stood by:
As all the world is cheered by the sun,
So I by that; it is my day, my life.
LADY ANNE

Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life!
GLOUCESTER

Curse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.
LADY ANNE

I would I were, to be revenged on thee.
GLOUCESTER

It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be revenged on him that loveth you.
LADY ANNE

It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
To be revenged on him that slew my husband.
GLOUCESTER

He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,
Did it to help thee to a better husband.
LADY ANNE

His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
GLOUCESTER

He lives that loves thee better than he could.
LADY ANNE

Name him.
GLOUCESTER

Plantagenet.
LADY ANNE

Why, that was he.
GLOUCESTER

The selfsame name, but one of better nature.
LADY ANNE

Where is he?
GLOUCESTER

Here.
She spitteth at him
Why dost thou spit at me?
LADY ANNE

Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
GLOUCESTER

Never came poison from so sweet a place.
LADY ANNE

Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.
GLOUCESTER

Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
LADY ANNE

Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!
GLOUCESTER

I would they were, that I might die at once;
For now they kill me with a living death.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Shamed their aspect with store of childish drops:
These eyes that never shed remorseful tear,
No, when my father York and Edward wept,
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father’s death,
And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
Like trees bedash’d with rain: in that sad time
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
I never sued to friend nor enemy;
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,
My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
She looks scornfully at him
Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;
Which if thou please to hide in this true bosom.
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
He lays his breast open: she offers at it with his sword
Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,
But ’twas thy beauty that provoked me.
Nay, now dispatch; ’twas I that stabb’d young Edward,
But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
Here she lets fall the sword
Take up the sword again, or take up me.
LADY ANNE

Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,
I will not be the executioner.
GLOUCESTER

Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
LADY ANNE

I have already.
GLOUCESTER

Tush, that was in thy rage:
Speak it again, and, even with the word,
That hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,
Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;
To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.
LADY ANNE

I would I knew thy heart.
GLOUCESTER

‘Tis figured in my tongue.
LADY ANNE

I fear me both are false.
GLOUCESTER

Then never man was true.
LADY ANNE

Well, well, put up your sword.
GLOUCESTER

Say, then, my peace is made.
LADY ANNE

That shall you know hereafter.
GLOUCESTER

But shall I live in hope?
LADY ANNE

All men, I hope, live so.
GLOUCESTER

Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
LADY ANNE

To take is not to give.
GLOUCESTER

Look, how this ring encompasseth finger.
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
And if thy poor devoted suppliant may
But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
LADY ANNE

What is it?
GLOUCESTER

That it would please thee leave these sad designs
To him that hath more cause to be a mourner,
And presently repair to Crosby Place;
Where, after I have solemnly interr’d
At Chertsey monastery this noble king,
And wet his grave with my repentant tears,
I will with all expedient duty see you:
For divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,
Grant me this boon.
LADY ANNE

With all my heart; and much it joys me too,
To see you are become so penitent.
Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
GLOUCESTER

Bid me farewell.
LADY ANNE

‘Tis more than you deserve;
But since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewell already.
Exeunt LADY ANNE, TRESSEL, and BERKELEY
GLOUCESTER

Sirs, take up the corse.
GENTLEMEN

Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
GLOUCESTER

No, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.
Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill’d her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by;
Having God, her conscience, and these bars
against me,
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb’d in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford
And will she yet debase her eyes on me,
That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?
On me, that halt and am unshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass,
And entertain some score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
Will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
Exit

SCENE III. The palace.

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, RIVERS, and GREY
RIVERS

Have patience, madam: there’s no doubt his majesty
Will soon recover his accustom’d health.
GREY

In that you brook it in, it makes him worse:
Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,
And cheer his grace with quick and merry words.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

If he were dead, what would betide of me?
RIVERS

No other harm but loss of such a lord.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

The loss of such a lord includes all harm.
GREY

The heavens have bless’d you with a goodly son,
To be your comforter when he is gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Oh, he is young and his minority
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
RIVERS

Is it concluded that he shall be protector?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

It is determined, not concluded yet:
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.
Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY
GREY

Here come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.
BUCKINGHAM

Good time of day unto your royal grace!
DERBY

God make your majesty joyful as you have been!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.
To your good prayers will scarcely say amen.
Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
DERBY

I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers;
Or, if she be accused in true report,
Bear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
RIVERS

Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Derby?
DERBY

But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
Are come from visiting his majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
BUCKINGHAM

Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

God grant him health! Did you confer with him?
BUCKINGHAM

Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement
Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
And betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Would all were well! but that will never be
I fear our happiness is at the highest.
Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET
GLOUCESTER

They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:
Who are they that complain unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abused
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
RIVERS

To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?
GLOUCESTER

To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
When have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?
Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal person,–
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!–
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
The king, of his own royal disposition,
And not provoked by any suitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
Which in your outward actions shows itself
Against my kindred, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.
GLOUCESTER

I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman
There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Come, come, we know your meaning, brother
Gloucester;
You envy my advancement and my friends’:
God grant we never may have need of you!
GLOUCESTER

Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:
Your brother is imprison’d by your means,
Myself disgraced, and the nobility
Held in contempt; whilst many fair promotions
Are daily given to ennoble those
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

By Him that raised me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy’d,
I never did incense his majesty
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury,
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
GLOUCESTER

You may deny that you were not the cause
Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
RIVERS

She may, my lord, for–
GLOUCESTER

She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?
She may do more, sir, than denying that:
She may help you to many fair preferments,
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high deserts.
What may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she–
RIVERS

What, marry, may she?
GLOUCESTER

What, marry, may she! marry with a king,
A bachelor, a handsome stripling too:
I wis your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
With those gross taunts I often have endured.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen, with this condition,
To be thus taunted, scorn’d, and baited at:
Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind
Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
QUEEN MARGARET

And lessen’d be that small, God, I beseech thee!
Thy honour, state and seat is due to me.
GLOUCESTER

What! threat you me with telling of the king?
Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said
I will avouch in presence of the king:
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
‘Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET

Out, devil! I remember them too well:
Thou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
GLOUCESTER

Ere you were queen, yea, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends:
To royalize his blood I spilt mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET

Yea, and much better blood than his or thine.
GLOUCESTER

In all which time you and your husband Grey
Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
In Margaret’s battle at Saint Alban’s slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
QUEEN MARGARET

A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
GLOUCESTER

Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;
Yea, and forswore himself,–which Jesu pardon!–
QUEEN MARGARET

Which God revenge!
GLOUCESTER

To fight on Edward’s party for the crown;
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew’d up.
I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s;
Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
QUEEN MARGARET

Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,
Thou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.
RIVERS

My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
We follow’d then our lord, our lawful king:
So should we you, if you should be our king.
GLOUCESTER

If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar:
Far be it from my heart, the thought of it!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country’s king,
As little joy may you suppose in me.
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET

A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient.
Advancing
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill’d from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?
O gentle villain, do not turn away!
GLOUCESTER

Foul wrinkled witch, what makest thou in my sight?
QUEEN MARGARET

But repetition of what thou hast marr’d;
That will I make before I let thee go.
GLOUCESTER

Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET

I was; but I do find more pain in banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son thou owest to me;
And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:
The sorrow that I have, by right is yours,
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
GLOUCESTER

The curse my noble father laid on thee,
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper
And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
And then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout
Steep’d in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland–
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

So just is God, to right the innocent.
HASTINGS

O, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e’er was heard of!
RIVERS

Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET

No man but prophesied revenge for it.
BUCKINGHAM

Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
QUEEN MARGARET

What were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven?
That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
Their kingdom’s loss, my woful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
If not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s loss;
And see another, as I see thee now,
Deck’d in thy rights, as thou art stall’d in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many lengthen’d hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen!
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabb’d with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by some unlook’d accident cut off!
GLOUCESTER

Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither’d hag!
QUEEN MARGARET

And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace!
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark’d, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy mother’s heavy womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father’s loins!
Thou rag of honour! thou detested–
GLOUCESTER

Margaret.
QUEEN MARGARET

Richard!
GLOUCESTER

Ha!
QUEEN MARGARET

I call thee not.
GLOUCESTER

I cry thee mercy then, for I had thought
That thou hadst call’d me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET

Why, so I did; but look’d for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
GLOUCESTER

‘Tis done by me, and ends in ‘Margaret.’
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
QUEEN MARGARET

Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!
Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool! thou whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come when thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunchback’d toad.
HASTINGS

False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET

Foul shame upon you! you have all moved mine.
RIVERS

Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
QUEEN MARGARET

To serve me well, you all should do me duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
DORSET

Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
QUEEN MARGARET

Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge
What ’twere to lose it, and be miserable!
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
GLOUCESTER

Good counsel, marry: learn it, learn it, marquess.
DORSET

It toucheth you, my lord, as much as me.
GLOUCESTER

Yea, and much more: but I was born so high,
Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
QUEEN MARGARET

And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death;
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aery buildeth in our aery’s nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!
BUCKINGHAM

Have done! for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET

Urge neither charity nor shame to me:
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher’d.
My charity is outrage, life my shame
And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.
BUCKINGHAM

Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET

O princely Buckingham I’ll kiss thy hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee:
Now fair befal thee and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM

Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET

I’ll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God’s gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
GLOUCESTER

What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM

Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
QUEEN MARGARET

What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, but remember this another day,
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God’s!
Exit
HASTINGS

My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.
RIVERS

And so doth mine: I muse why she’s at liberty.
GLOUCESTER

I cannot blame her: by God’s holy mother,
She hath had too much wrong; and I repent
My part thereof that I have done to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

I never did her any, to my knowledge.
GLOUCESTER

But you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good,
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,
He is frank’d up to fatting for his pains
God pardon them that are the cause of it!
RIVERS

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
GLOUCESTER

So do I ever:
Aside
being well-advised.
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
Enter CATESBY
CATESBY

Madam, his majesty doth call for you,
And for your grace; and you, my noble lords.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Catesby, we come. Lords, will you go with us?
RIVERS

Madam, we will attend your grace.
Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls
Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;
And say it is the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now, they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter two Murderers
But, soft! here come my executioners.
How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!
Are you now going to dispatch this deed?
First Murderer

We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant
That we may be admitted where he is.
GLOUCESTER

Well thought upon; I have it here about me.
Gives the warrant
When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
First Murderer

Tush!
Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers: be assured
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
GLOUCESTER

Your eyes drop millstones, when fools’ eyes drop tears:
I like you, lads; about your business straight;
Go, go, dispatch.
First Murderer

We will, my noble lord.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The Tower.

Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY
BRAKENBURY

Why looks your grace so heavily today?
CLARENCE

O, I have pass’d a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time!
BRAKENBURY

What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.
CLARENCE

Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark’d to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall’n us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by.
BRAKENBURY

Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?
CLARENCE

Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air;
But smother’d it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRAKENBURY

Awaked you not with this sore agony?
CLARENCE

O, no, my dream was lengthen’d after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul,
Who pass’d, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud, ‘What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’
And so he vanish’d: then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he squeak’d out aloud,
‘Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabb’d me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!’
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ’d me about, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made the dream.
BRAKENBURY

No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you;
I promise, I am afraid to hear you tell it.
CLARENCE

O Brakenbury, I have done those things,
Which now bear evidence against my soul,
For Edward’s sake; and see how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath in me alone,
O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
BRAKENBURY

I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!
CLARENCE sleeps
Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.
Princes have but their tides for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imagination,
They often feel a world of restless cares:
So that, betwixt their tides and low names,
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.
Enter the two Murderers
First Murderer

Ho! who’s here?
BRAKENBURY

In God’s name what are you, and how came you hither?
First Murderer

I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.
BRAKENBURY

Yea, are you so brief?
Second Murderer

O sir, it is better to be brief than tedious. Show
him our commission; talk no more.
BRAKENBURY reads it
BRAKENBURY

I am, in this, commanded to deliver
The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:
I will not reason what is meant hereby,
Because I will be guiltless of the meaning.
Here are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:
I’ll to the king; and signify to him
That thus I have resign’d my charge to you.
First Murderer

Do so, it is a point of wisdom: fare you well.
Exit BRAKENBURY
Second Murderer

What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?
First Murderer

No; then he will say ’twas done cowardly, when he wakes.
Second Murderer

When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake till
the judgment-day.
First Murderer

Why, then he will say we stabbed him sleeping.
Second Murderer

The urging of that word ‘judgment’ hath bred a kind
of remorse in me.
First Murderer

What, art thou afraid?
Second Murderer

Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be
damned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.
First Murderer

I thought thou hadst been resolute.
Second Murderer

So I am, to let him live.
First Murderer

Back to the Duke of Gloucester, tell him so.
Second Murderer

I pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour
will change; ’twas wont to hold me but while one
would tell twenty.
First Murderer

How dost thou feel thyself now?
Second Murderer

‘Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet
within me.
First Murderer

Remember our reward, when the deed is done.
Second Murderer

‘Zounds, he dies: I had forgot the reward.
First Murderer

Where is thy conscience now?
Second Murderer

In the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.
First Murderer

So when he opens his purse to give us our reward,
thy conscience flies out.
Second Murderer

Let it go; there’s few or none will entertain it.
First Murderer

How if it come to thee again?
Second Murderer

I’ll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it
makes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it
accuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;
he cannot lie with his neighbour’s wife, but it
detects him: ’tis a blushing shamefast spirit that
mutinies in a man’s bosom; it fills one full of
obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold
that I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it
is turned out of all towns and cities for a
dangerous thing; and every man that means to live
well endeavours to trust to himself and to live
without it.
First Murderer

‘Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me
not to kill the duke.
Second Murderer

Take the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he
would insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.
First Murderer

Tut, I am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me,
I warrant thee.
Second Murderer

Spoke like a tail fellow that respects his
reputation. Come, shall we to this gear?
First Murderer

Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy
sword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt
in the next room.
Second Murderer

O excellent devise! make a sop of him.
First Murderer

Hark! he stirs: shall I strike?
Second Murderer

No, first let’s reason with him.
CLARENCE

Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.
Second murderer

You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.
CLARENCE

In God’s name, what art thou?
Second Murderer

A man, as you are.
CLARENCE

But not, as I am, royal.
Second Murderer

Nor you, as we are, loyal.
CLARENCE

Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.
Second Murderer

My voice is now the king’s, my looks mine own.
CLARENCE

How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!
Your eyes do menace me: why look you pale?
Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
Both

To, to, to–
CLARENCE

To murder me?
Both

Ay, ay.
CLARENCE

You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
First Murderer

Offended us you have not, but the king.
CLARENCE

I shall be reconciled to him again.
Second Murderer

Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.
CLARENCE

Are you call’d forth from out a world of men
To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
Where are the evidence that do accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounced
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death?
Before I be convict by course of law,
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
I charge you, as you hope to have redemption
By Christ’s dear blood shed for our grievous sins,
That you depart and lay no hands on me
The deed you undertake is damnable.
First Murderer

What we will do, we do upon command.
Second Murderer

And he that hath commanded is the king.
CLARENCE

Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings
Hath in the tables of his law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,
Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man’s?
Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
Second Murderer

And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,
For false forswearing and for murder too:
Thou didst receive the holy sacrament,
To fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
First Murderer

And, like a traitor to the name of God,
Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade
Unrip’dst the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.
Second Murderer

Whom thou wert sworn to cherish and defend.
First Murderer

How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law to us,
When thou hast broke it in so dear degree?
CLARENCE

Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,
He sends ye not to murder me for this
For in this sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be revenged for this deed.
O, know you yet, he doth it publicly,
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm;
He needs no indirect nor lawless course
To cut off those that have offended him.
First Murderer

Who made thee, then, a bloody minister,
When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?
CLARENCE

My brother’s love, the devil, and my rage.
First Murderer

Thy brother’s love, our duty, and thy fault,
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
CLARENCE

Oh, if you love my brother, hate not me;
I am his brother, and I love him well.
If you be hired for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
Who shall reward you better for my life
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
Second Murderer

You are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.
CLARENCE

O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear:
Go you to him from me.
Both

Ay, so we will.
CLARENCE

Tell him, when that our princely father York
Bless’d his three sons with his victorious arm,
And charged us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided friendship:
Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
First Murderer

Ay, millstones; as be lesson’d us to weep.
CLARENCE

O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
First Murderer

Right,
As snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:
‘Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.
CLARENCE

It cannot be; for when I parted with him,
He hugg’d me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,
That he would labour my delivery.
Second Murderer

Why, so he doth, now he delivers thee
From this world’s thraldom to the joys of heaven.
First Murderer

Make peace with God, for you must die, my lord.
CLARENCE

Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,
That thou wilt war with God by murdering me?
Ah, sirs, consider, he that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
Second Murderer

What shall we do?
CLARENCE

Relent, and save your souls.
First Murderer

Relent! ’tis cowardly and womanish.
CLARENCE

Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,
Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
if two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
Would not entreat for life?
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
Second Murderer

Look behind you, my lord.
First Murderer

Take that, and that: if all this will not do,
Stabs him
I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.
Exit, with the body
Second Murderer

A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch’d!
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous guilty murder done!
Re-enter First Murderer
First Murderer

How now! what mean’st thou, that thou help’st me not?
By heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!
Second Murderer

I would he knew that I had saved his brother!
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;
For I repent me that the duke is slain.
Exit
First Murderer

So do not I: go, coward as thou art.
Now must I hide his body in some hole,
Until the duke take order for his burial:
And when I have my meed, I must away;
For this will out, and here I must not stay.

ACT II
SCENE I. London. The palace.

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD IV sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others
KING EDWARD IV

Why, so: now have I done a good day’s work:
You peers, continue this united league:
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;
And now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,
Since I have set my friends at peace on earth.
Rivers and Hastings, take each other’s hand;
Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.
RIVERS

By heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:
And with my hand I seal my true heart’s love.
HASTINGS

So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!
KING EDWARD IV

Take heed you dally not before your king;
Lest he that is the supreme King of kings
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
Either of you to be the other’s end.
HASTINGS

So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!
RIVERS

And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!
KING EDWARD IV

Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,
Nor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;
You have been factious one against the other,
Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Here, Hastings; I will never more remember
Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!
KING EDWARD IV

Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love lord marquess.
DORSET

This interchange of love, I here protest,
Upon my part shall be unviolable.
HASTINGS

And so swear I, my lord
They embrace
KING EDWARD IV

Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league
With thy embracements to my wife’s allies,
And make me happy in your unity.
BUCKINGHAM

Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
On you or yours,
To the Queen
but with all duteous love
Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most love!
When I have most need to employ a friend,
And most assured that he is a friend
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he unto me! this do I beg of God,
When I am cold in zeal to yours.
KING EDWARD IV

A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,
To make the perfect period of this peace.
BUCKINGHAM

And, in good time, here comes the noble duke.
Enter GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER

Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen:
And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
KING EDWARD IV

Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
Brother, we done deeds of charity;
Made peace enmity, fair love of hate,
Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
GLOUCESTER

A blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:
Amongst this princely heap, if any here,
By false intelligence, or wrong surmise,
Hold me a foe;
If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
‘Tis death to me to be at enmity;
I hate it, and desire all good men’s love.
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my duteous service;
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
If ever any grudge were lodged between us;
Of you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;
That without desert have frown’d on me;
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.
I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds
More than the infant that is born to-night
I thank my God for my humility.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
GLOUCESTER

Why, madam, have I offer’d love for this
To be so bouted in this royal presence?
Who knows not that the noble duke is dead?
They all start
You do him injury to scorn his corse.
RIVERS

Who knows not he is dead! who knows he is?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

All seeing heaven, what a world is this!
BUCKINGHAM

Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
DORSET

Ay, my good lord; and no one in this presence
But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
KING EDWARD IV

Is Clarence dead? the order was reversed.
GLOUCESTER

But he, poor soul, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear:
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
That came too lag to see him buried.
God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion!
Enter DERBY
DERBY

A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
KING EDWARD IV

I pray thee, peace: my soul is full of sorrow.
DERBY

I will not rise, unless your highness grant.
KING EDWARD IV

Then speak at once what is it thou demand’st.
DERBY

The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant’s life;
Who slew to-day a righteous gentleman
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
KING EDWARD IV

Have a tongue to doom my brother’s death,
And shall the same give pardon to a slave?
My brother slew no man; his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was cruel death.
Who sued to me for him? who, in my rage,
Kneel’d at my feet, and bade me be advised
Who spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field by Tewksbury
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me,
And said, ‘Dear brother, live, and be a king’?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his own garments, and gave himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck’d, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defaced
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I unjustly too, must grant it you
But for my brother not a man would speak,
Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholding to him in his life;
Yet none of you would once plead for his life.
O God, I fear thy justice will take hold
On me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.
Oh, poor Clarence!
Exeunt some with KING EDWARD IV and QUEEN MARGARET
GLOUCESTER

This is the fruit of rashness! Mark’d you not
How that the guilty kindred of the queen
Look’d pale when they did hear of Clarence’ death?
O, they did urge it still unto the king!
God will revenge it. But come, let us in,
To comfort Edward with our company.
BUCKINGHAM

We wait upon your grace.
Exeunt

SCENE II. The palace.

Enter the DUCHESS OF YORK, with the two children of CLARENCE
Boy

Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead?
DUCHESS OF YORK

No, boy.
Boy

Why do you wring your hands, and beat your breast,
And cry ‘O Clarence, my unhappy son!’
Girl

Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
And call us wretches, orphans, castaways
If that our noble father be alive?
DUCHESS OF YORK

My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;
I do lament the sickness of the king.
As loath to lose him, not your father’s death;
It were lost sorrow to wail one that’s lost.
Boy

Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.
The king my uncle is to blame for this:
God will revenge it; whom I will importune
With daily prayers all to that effect.
Girl

And so will I.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:
Incapable and shallow innocents,
You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.
Boy

Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
Told me, the king, provoked by the queen,
Devised impeachments to imprison him :
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And hugg’d me in his arm, and kindly kiss’d my cheek;
Bade me rely on him as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
Boy

Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
DUCHESS OF YORK

Ay, boy.
Boy

I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her ears; RIVERS, and DORSET after her
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Oh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I’ll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.
DUCHESS OF YORK

What means this scene of rude impatience?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

To make an act of tragic violence:
Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches now the root is wither’d?
Why wither not the leaves the sap being gone?
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king’s;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,
And lived by looking on his images:
But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack’d in pieces by malignant death,
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
Which grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left thee:
But death hath snatch’d my husband from mine arms,
And pluck’d two crutches from my feeble limbs,
Edward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,
Thine being but a moiety of my grief,
To overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!
Boy

Good aunt, you wept not for our father’s death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
Girl

Our fatherless distress was left unmoan’d;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Give me no help in lamentation;
I am not barren to bring forth complaints
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern’d by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Oh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!
Children

Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!
DUCHESS OF YORK

Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What stay had I but Edward? and he’s gone.
Children

What stay had we but Clarence? and he’s gone.
DUCHESS OF YORK

What stays had I but they? and they are gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Was never widow had so dear a loss!
Children

Were never orphans had so dear a loss!
DUCHESS OF YORK

Was never mother had so dear a loss!
Alas, I am the mother of these moans!
Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:
These babes for Clarence weep and so do I;
I for an Edward weep, so do not they:
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress’d,
Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow’s nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.
DORSET

Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness, his doing:
In common worldly things, ’tis call’d ungrateful,
With dull unwilligness to repay a debt
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
RIVERS

Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
Of the young prince your son: send straight for him
Let him be crown’d; in him your comfort lives:
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.
Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF
GLOUCESTER

Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause
To wail the dimming of our shining star;
But none can cure their harms by wailing them.
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
I did not see your grace: humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing.
DUCHESS OF YORK

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
GLOUCESTER

[Aside] Amen; and make me die a good old man!
That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing:
I marvel why her grace did leave it out.
BUCKINGHAM

You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,
That bear this mutual heavy load of moan,
Now cheer each other in each other’s love
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinter’d, knit, and join’d together,
Must gently be preserved, cherish’d, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch’d
Hither to London, to be crown’d our king.
RIVERS

Why with some little train, my Lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM

Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal’d wound of malice should break out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous
By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern’d:
Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
GLOUCESTER

I hope the king made peace with all of us
And the compact is firm and true in me.
RIVERS

And so in me; and so, I think, in all:
Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
To no apparent likelihood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be urged:
Therefore I say with noble Buckingham,
That it is meet so few should fetch the prince.
HASTINGS

And so say I.
GLOUCESTER

Then be it so; and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
Madam, and you, my mother, will you go
To give your censures in this weighty business?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

DUCHESS OF YORK

With all our harts.
Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER
BUCKINGHAM

My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
For God’s sake, let not us two be behind;
For, by the way, I’ll sort occasion,
As index to the story we late talk’d of,
To part the queen’s proud kindred from the king.
GLOUCESTER

My other self, my counsel’s consistory,
My oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,
I, like a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.
Exeunt

SCENE III. London. A street.

Enter two Citizens meeting
First Citizen

Neighbour, well met: whither away so fast?
Second Citizen

I promise you, I scarcely know myself:
Hear you the news abroad?
First Citizen

Ay, that the king is dead.
Second Citizen

Bad news, by’r lady; seldom comes the better:
I fear, I fear ’twill prove a troublous world.
Enter another Citizen
Third Citizen

Neighbours, God speed!
First Citizen

Give you good morrow, sir.
Third Citizen

Doth this news hold of good King Edward’s death?
Second Citizen

Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!
Third Citizen

Then, masters, look to see a troublous world.
First Citizen

No, no; by God’s good grace his son shall reign.
Third Citizen

Woe to the land that’s govern’d by a child!
Second Citizen

In him there is a hope of government,
That in his nonage council under him,
And in his full and ripen’d years himself,
No doubt, shall then and till then govern well.
First Citizen

So stood the state when Henry the Sixth
Was crown’d in Paris but at nine months old.
Third Citizen

Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;
For then this land was famously enrich’d
With politic grave counsel; then the king
Had virtuous uncles to protect his grace.
First Citizen

Why, so hath this, both by the father and mother.
Third Citizen

Better it were they all came by the father,
Or by the father there were none at all;
For emulation now, who shall be nearest,
Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.
O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!
And the queen’s sons and brothers haught and proud:
And were they to be ruled, and not to rule,
This sickly land might solace as before.
First Citizen

Come, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.
Third Citizen

When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
All may be well; but, if God sort it so,
‘Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.
Second Citizen

Truly, the souls of men are full of dread:
Ye cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of fear.
Third Citizen

Before the times of change, still is it so:
By a divine instinct men’s minds mistrust
Ensuing dangers; as by proof, we see
The waters swell before a boisterous storm.
But leave it all to God. whither away?
Second Citizen

Marry, we were sent for to the justices.
Third Citizen

And so was I: I’ll bear you company.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, young YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH, and the DUCHESS OF YORK
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Last night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;
At Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:
To-morrow, or next day, they will be here.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I long with all my heart to see the prince:
I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But I hear, no; they say my son of York
Hath almost overta’en him in his growth.
YORK

Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Why, my young cousin, it is good to grow.
YORK

Grandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,
My uncle Rivers talk’d how I did grow
More than my brother: ‘Ay,’ quoth my uncle
Gloucester,
‘Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:’
And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
In him that did object the same to thee;
He was the wretched’st thing when he was young,
So long a-growing and so leisurely,
That, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Why, madam, so, no doubt, he is.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.
YORK

Now, by my troth, if I had been remember’d,
I could have given my uncle’s grace a flout,
To touch his growth nearer than he touch’d mine.
DUCHESS OF YORK

How, my pretty York? I pray thee, let me hear it.
YORK

Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old
‘Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?
YORK

Grandam, his nurse.
DUCHESS OF YORK

His nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wert born.
YORK

If ’twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

A parlous boy: go to, you are too shrewd.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Good madam, be not angry with the child.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Pitchers have ears.
Enter a Messenger
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Here comes a messenger. What news?
Messenger

Such news, my lord, as grieves me to unfold.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

How fares the prince?
Messenger

Well, madam, and in health.
DUCHESS OF YORK

What is thy news then?
Messenger

Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,
With them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Who hath committed them?
Messenger

The mighty dukes
Gloucester and Buckingham.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

For what offence?
Messenger

The sum of all I can, I have disclosed;
Why or for what these nobles were committed
Is all unknown to me, my gracious lady.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ay me, I see the downfall of our house!
The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;
Insulting tyranny begins to jet
Upon the innocent and aweless throne:
Welcome, destruction, death, and massacre!
I see, as in a map, the end of all.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,
How many of you have mine eyes beheld!
My husband lost his life to get the crown;
And often up and down my sons were toss’d,
For me to joy and weep their gain and loss:
And being seated, and domestic broils
Clean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.
Make war upon themselves; blood against blood,
Self against self: O, preposterous
And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;
Or let me die, to look on death no more!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary.
Madam, farewell.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I’ll go along with you.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

You have no cause.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

My gracious lady, go;
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I’ll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep: and so betide to me
As well I tender you and all of yours!
Come, I’ll conduct you to the sanctuary.
Exeunt

ACT III
SCENE I. London. A street.

The trumpets sound. Enter the young PRINCE EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, CARDINAL, CATESBY, and others
BUCKINGHAM

Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.
GLOUCESTER

Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts’ sovereign
The weary way hath made you melancholy.
PRINCE EDWARD

No, uncle; but our crosses on the way
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy
I want more uncles here to welcome me.
GLOUCESTER

Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet dived into the world’s deceit
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God he knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar’d words,
But look’d not on the poison of their hearts :
God keep you from them, and from such false friends!
PRINCE EDWARD

God keep me from false friends! but they were none.
GLOUCESTER

My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.
Enter the Lord Mayor and his train
Lord Mayor

God bless your grace with health and happy days!
PRINCE EDWARD

I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.
I thought my mother, and my brother York,
Would long ere this have met us on the way
Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
To tell us whether they will come or no!
Enter HASTINGS
BUCKINGHAM

And, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.
PRINCE EDWARD

Welcome, my lord: what, will our mother come?
HASTINGS

On what occasion, God he knows, not I,
The queen your mother, and your brother York,
Have taken sanctuary: the tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
BUCKINGHAM

Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace
Persuade the queen to send the Duke of York
Unto his princely brother presently?
If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,
And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
CARDINAL

My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory
Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessed sanctuary! not for all this land
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
BUCKINGHAM

You are too senseless–obstinate, my lord,
Too ceremonious and traditional
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted
To those whose dealings have deserved the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place:
This prince hath neither claim’d it nor deserved it;
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:
Then, taking him from thence that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;
But sanctuary children ne’er till now.
CARDINAL

My lord, you shall o’er-rule my mind for once.
Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?
HASTINGS

I go, my lord.
PRINCE EDWARD

Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.
Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS
Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
GLOUCESTER

Where it seems best unto your royal self.
If I may counsel you, some day or two
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower:
Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit
For your best health and recreation.
PRINCE EDWARD

I do not like the Tower, of any place.
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
BUCKINGHAM

He did, my gracious lord, begin that place;
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
PRINCE EDWARD

Is it upon record, or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
BUCKINGHAM

Upon record, my gracious lord.
PRINCE EDWARD

But say, my lord, it were not register’d,
Methinks the truth should live from age to age,
As ’twere retail’d to all posterity,
Even to the general all-ending day.
GLOUCESTER

[Aside] So wise so young, they say, do never
live long.
PRINCE EDWARD

What say you, uncle?
GLOUCESTER

I say, without characters, fame lives long.
Aside
Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word.
PRINCE EDWARD

That Julius Caesar was a famous man;
With what his valour did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valour live
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
I’ll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,–
BUCKINGHAM

What, my gracious lord?
PRINCE EDWARD

An if I live until I be a man,
I’ll win our ancient right in France again,
Or die a soldier, as I lived a king.
GLOUCESTER

[Aside] Short summers lightly have a forward spring.
Enter young YORK, HASTINGS, and the CARDINAL
BUCKINGHAM

Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.
PRINCE EDWARD

Richard of York! how fares our loving brother?
YORK

Well, my dread lord; so must I call you now.
PRINCE EDWARD

Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:
Too late he died that might have kept that title,
Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
GLOUCESTER

How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?
YORK

I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,
You said that idle weeds are fast in growth
The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
GLOUCESTER

He hath, my lord.
YORK

And therefore is he idle?
GLOUCESTER

O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.
YORK

Then is he more beholding to you than I.
GLOUCESTER

He may command me as my sovereign;
But you have power in me as in a kinsman.
YORK

I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.
GLOUCESTER

My dagger, little cousin? with all my heart.
PRINCE EDWARD

A beggar, brother?
YORK

Of my kind uncle, that I know will give;
And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.
GLOUCESTER

A greater gift than that I’ll give my cousin.
YORK

A greater gift! O, that’s the sword to it.
GLOUCESTER

A gentle cousin, were it light enough.
YORK

O, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts;
In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay.
GLOUCESTER

It is too heavy for your grace to wear.
YORK

I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.
GLOUCESTER

What, would you have my weapon, little lord?
YORK

I would, that I might thank you as you call me.
GLOUCESTER

How?
YORK

Little.
PRINCE EDWARD

My Lord of York will still be cross in talk:
Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.
YORK

You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;
Because that I am little, like an ape,
He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.
BUCKINGHAM

With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!
To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,
He prettily and aptly taunts himself:
So cunning and so young is wonderful.
GLOUCESTER

My lord, will’t please you pass along?
Myself and my good cousin Buckingham
Will to your mother, to entreat of her
To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.
YORK

What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?
PRINCE EDWARD

My lord protector needs will have it so.
YORK

I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.
GLOUCESTER

Why, what should you fear?
YORK

Marry, my uncle Clarence’ angry ghost:
My grandam told me he was murdered there.
PRINCE EDWARD

I fear no uncles dead.
GLOUCESTER

Nor none that live, I hope.
PRINCE EDWARD

An if they live, I hope I need not fear.
But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,
Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.
A Sennet. Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM and CATESBY
BUCKINGHAM

Think you, my lord, this little prating York
Was not incensed by his subtle mother
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?
GLOUCESTER

No doubt, no doubt; O, ’tis a parlous boy;
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable
He is all the mother’s, from the top to toe.
BUCKINGHAM

Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.
Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend
As closely to conceal what we impart:
Thou know’st our reasons urged upon the way;
What think’st thou? is it not an easy matter
To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,
For the instalment of this noble duke
In the seat royal of this famous isle?
CATESBY

He for his father’s sake so loves the prince,
That he will not be won to aught against him.
BUCKINGHAM

What think’st thou, then, of Stanley? what will he?
CATESBY

He will do all in all as Hastings doth.
BUCKINGHAM

Well, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,
And, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,
How doth he stand affected to our purpose;
And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,
To sit about the coronation.
If thou dost find him tractable to us,
Encourage him, and show him all our reasons:
If he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,
Be thou so too; and so break off your talk,
And give us notice of his inclination:
For we to-morrow hold divided councils,
Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ’d.
GLOUCESTER

Commend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries
To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;
And bid my friend, for joy of this good news,
Give mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.
BUCKINGHAM

Good Catesby, go, effect this business soundly.
CATESBY

My good lords both, with all the heed I may.
GLOUCESTER

Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?
CATESBY

You shall, my lord.
GLOUCESTER

At Crosby Place, there shall you find us both.
Exit CATESBY
BUCKINGHAM

Now, my lord, what shall we do, if we perceive
Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?
GLOUCESTER

Chop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:
And, look, when I am king, claim thou of me
The earldom of Hereford, and the moveables
Whereof the king my brother stood possess’d.
BUCKINGHAM

I’ll claim that promise at your grace’s hands.
GLOUCESTER

And look to have it yielded with all willingness.
Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards
We may digest our complots in some form.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Before Lord Hastings’ house.

Enter a Messenger
Messenger

What, ho! my lord!
HASTINGS

[Within] Who knocks at the door?
Messenger

A messenger from the Lord Stanley.
Enter HASTINGS
HASTINGS

What is’t o’clock?
Messenger

Upon the stroke of four.
HASTINGS

Cannot thy master sleep these tedious nights?
Messenger

So it should seem by that I have to say.
First, he commends him to your noble lordship.
HASTINGS

And then?
Messenger

And then he sends you word
He dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:
Besides, he says there are two councils held;
And that may be determined at the one
which may make you and him to rue at the other.
Therefore he sends to know your lordship’s pleasure,
If presently you will take horse with him,
And with all speed post with him toward the north,
To shun the danger that his soul divines.
HASTINGS

Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;
Bid him not fear the separated councils
His honour and myself are at the one,
And at the other is my servant Catesby
Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us
Whereof I shall not have intelligence.
Tell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:
And for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond
To trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers
To fly the boar before the boar pursues,
Were to incense the boar to follow us
And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.
Go, bid thy master rise and come to me
And we will both together to the Tower,
Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.
Messenger

My gracious lord, I’ll tell him what you say.
Exit
Enter CATESBY
CATESBY

Many good morrows to my noble lord!
HASTINGS

Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring
What news, what news, in this our tottering state?
CATESBY

It is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;
And I believe twill never stand upright
Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.
HASTINGS

How! wear the garland! dost thou mean the crown?
CATESBY

Ay, my good lord.
HASTINGS

I’ll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders
Ere I will see the crown so foul misplaced.
But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?
CATESBY

Ay, on my life; and hopes to find forward
Upon his party for the gain thereof:
And thereupon he sends you this good news,
That this same very day your enemies,
The kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.
HASTINGS

Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,
Because they have been still mine enemies:
But, that I’ll give my voice on Richard’s side,
To bar my master’s heirs in true descent,
God knows I will not do it, to the death.
CATESBY

God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!
HASTINGS

But I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,
That they who brought me in my master’s hate
I live to look upon their tragedy.
I tell thee, Catesby–
CATESBY

What, my lord?
HASTINGS

Ere a fortnight make me elder,
I’ll send some packing that yet think not on it.
CATESBY

‘Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,
When men are unprepared and look not for it.
HASTINGS

O monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out
With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so ’twill do
With some men else, who think themselves as safe
As thou and I; who, as thou know’st, are dear
To princely Richard and to Buckingham.
CATESBY

The princes both make high account of you;
Aside
For they account his head upon the bridge.
HASTINGS

I know they do; and I have well deserved it.
Enter STANLEY
Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?
Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?
STANLEY

My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:
You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,
I do not like these several councils, I.
HASTINGS

My lord,
I hold my life as dear as you do yours;
And never in my life, I do protest,
Was it more precious to me than ’tis now:
Think you, but that I know our state secure,
I would be so triumphant as I am?
STANLEY

The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,
Were jocund, and supposed their state was sure,
And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;
But yet, you see how soon the day o’ercast.
This sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:
Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!
What, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.
HASTINGS

Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my lord?
To-day the lords you talk of are beheaded.
LORD STANLEY

They, for their truth, might better wear their heads
Than some that have accused them wear their hats.
But come, my lord, let us away.
Enter a Pursuivant
HASTINGS

Go on before; I’ll talk with this good fellow.
Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY
How now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?
Pursuivant

The better that your lordship please to ask.
HASTINGS

I tell thee, man, ’tis better with me now
Than when I met thee last where now we meet:
Then was I going prisoner to the Tower,
By the suggestion of the queen’s allies;
But now, I tell thee–keep it to thyself–
This day those enemies are put to death,
And I in better state than e’er I was.
Pursuivant

God hold it, to your honour’s good content!
HASTINGS

Gramercy, fellow: there, drink that for me.
Throws him his purse
Pursuivant

God save your lordship!
Exit
Enter a Priest
Priest

Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.
HASTINGS

I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.
I am in your debt for your last exercise;
Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.
He whispers in his ear
Enter BUCKINGHAM
BUCKINGHAM

What, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?
Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;
Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.
HASTINGS

Good faith, and when I met this holy man,
Those men you talk of came into my mind.
What, go you toward the Tower?
BUCKINGHAM

I do, my lord; but long I shall not stay
I shall return before your lordship thence.
HASTINGS

‘Tis like enough, for I stay dinner there.
BUCKINGHAM

[Aside] And supper too, although thou know’st it not.
Come, will you go?
HASTINGS

I’ll wait upon your lordship.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Pomfret Castle.

Enter RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN to death
RATCLIFF

Come, bring forth the prisoners.
RIVERS

Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:
To-day shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
GREY

God keep the prince from all the pack of you!
A knot you are of damned blood-suckers!
VAUGHAN

You live that shall cry woe for this after.
RATCLIFF

Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.
RIVERS

O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the second here was hack’d to death;
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.
GREY

Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,
For standing by when Richard stabb’d her son.
RIVERS

Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,
Then cursed she Richard. O, remember, God
To hear her prayers for them, as now for us
And for my sister and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.
RATCLIFF

Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.
RIVERS

Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us all embrace:
And take our leave, until we meet in heaven.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. The Tower of London.

Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP OF ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, with others, and take their seats at a table
HASTINGS

My lords, at once: the cause why we are met
Is, to determine of the coronation.
In God’s name, speak: when is the royal day?
BUCKINGHAM

Are all things fitting for that royal time?
DERBY

It is, and wants but nomination.
BISHOP OF ELY

To-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.
BUCKINGHAM

Who knows the lord protector’s mind herein?
Who is most inward with the royal duke?
BISHOP OF ELY

Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.
BUCKINGHAM

Who, I, my lord I we know each other’s faces,
But for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,
Than I of yours;
Nor I no more of his, than you of mine.
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
HASTINGS

I thank his grace, I know he loves me well;
But, for his purpose in the coronation.
I have not sounded him, nor he deliver’d
His gracious pleasure any way therein:
But you, my noble lords, may name the time;
And in the duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice,
Which, I presume, he’ll take in gentle part.
Enter GLOUCESTER
BISHOP OF ELY

Now in good time, here comes the duke himself.
GLOUCESTER

My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.
I have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,
My absence doth neglect no great designs,
Which by my presence might have been concluded.
BUCKINGHAM

Had not you come upon your cue, my lord
William Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,–
I mean, your voice,–for crowning of the king.
GLOUCESTER

Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;
His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.
HASTINGS

I thank your grace.
GLOUCESTER

My lord of Ely!
BISHOP OF ELY

My lord?
GLOUCESTER

When I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there
I do beseech you send for some of them.
BISHOP OF ELY

Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.
Exit
GLOUCESTER

Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
Drawing him aside
Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
And finds the testy gentleman so hot,
As he will lose his head ere give consent
His master’s son, as worshipful as he terms it,
Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.
BUCKINGHAM

Withdraw you hence, my lord, I’ll follow you.
Exit GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM following
DERBY

We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
To-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;
For I myself am not so well provided
As else I would be, were the day prolong’d.
Re-enter BISHOP OF ELY
BISHOP OF ELY

Where is my lord protector? I have sent for these
strawberries.
HASTINGS

His grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;
There’s some conceit or other likes him well,
When he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.
I think there’s never a man in Christendom
That can less hide his love or hate than he;
For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
DERBY

What of his heart perceive you in his face
By any likelihood he show’d to-day?
HASTINGS

Marry, that with no man here he is offended;
For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.
DERBY

I pray God he be not, I say.
Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM
GLOUCESTER

I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
That do conspire my death with devilish plots
Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail’d
Upon my body with their hellish charms?
HASTINGS

The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,
Makes me most forward in this noble presence
To doom the offenders, whatsoever they be
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
GLOUCESTER

Then be your eyes the witness of this ill:
See how I am bewitch’d; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither’d up:
And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
HASTINGS

If they have done this thing, my gracious lord–
GLOUCESTER

If I thou protector of this damned strumpet–
Tellest thou me of ‘ifs’? Thou art a traitor:
Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,
I will not dine until I see the same.
Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:
The rest, that love me, rise and follow me.
Exeunt all but HASTINGS, RATCLIFF, and LOVEL
HASTINGS

Woe, woe for England! not a whit for me;
For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;
But I disdain’d it, and did scorn to fly:
Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,
And startled, when he look’d upon the Tower,
As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
O, now I want the priest that spake to me:
I now repent I told the pursuivant
As ’twere triumphing at mine enemies,
How they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher’d,
And I myself secure in grace and favour.
O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!
RATCLIFF

Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:
Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.
HASTINGS

O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hopes in air of your good looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
LOVEL

Come, come, dispatch; ’tis bootless to exclaim.
HASTINGS

O bloody Richard! miserable England!
I prophesy the fearful’st time to thee
That ever wretched age hath look’d upon.
Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.
They smile at me that shortly shall be dead.
Exeunt

SCENE V. The Tower-walls.

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured
GLOUCESTER

Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,
Murder thy breath in the middle of a word,
And then begin again, and stop again,
As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?
BUCKINGHAM

Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles;
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time, to grace my stratagems.
But what, is Catesby gone?
GLOUCESTER

He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.
Enter the Lord Mayor and CATESBY
BUCKINGHAM

Lord mayor,–
GLOUCESTER

Look to the drawbridge there!
BUCKINGHAM

Hark! a drum.
GLOUCESTER

Catesby, o’erlook the walls.
BUCKINGHAM

Lord mayor, the reason we have sent–
GLOUCESTER

Look back, defend thee, here are enemies.
BUCKINGHAM

God and our innocency defend and guard us!
GLOUCESTER

Be patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.
Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS’ head
LOVEL

Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.
GLOUCESTER

So dear I loved the man, that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless creature
That breathed upon this earth a Christian;
Made him my book wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts:
So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,
That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
I mean, his conversation with Shore’s wife,
He lived from all attainder of suspect.
BUCKINGHAM

Well, well, he was the covert’st shelter’d traitor
That ever lived.
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
Were’t not that, by great preservation,
We live to tell it you, the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?
Lord Mayor

What, had he so?
GLOUCESTER

What, think You we are Turks or infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly to the villain’s death,
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England and our persons’ safety,
Enforced us to this execution?
Lord Mayor

Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death;
And you my good lords, both have well proceeded,
To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
I never look’d for better at his hands,
After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.
GLOUCESTER

Yet had not we determined he should die,
Until your lordship came to see his death;
Which now the loving haste of these our friends,
Somewhat against our meaning, have prevented:
Because, my lord, we would have had you heard
The traitor speak, and timorously confess
The manner and the purpose of his treason;
That you might well have signified the same
Unto the citizens, who haply may
Misconstrue us in him and wail his death.
Lord Mayor

But, my good lord, your grace’s word shall serve,
As well as I had seen and heard him speak
And doubt you not, right noble princes both,
But I’ll acquaint our duteous citizens
With all your just proceedings in this cause.
GLOUCESTER

And to that end we wish’d your lord-ship here,
To avoid the carping censures of the world.
BUCKINGHAM

But since you come too late of our intents,
Yet witness what you hear we did intend:
And so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.
Exit Lord Mayor
GLOUCESTER

Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.
The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:
There, at your meet’st advantage of the time,
Infer the bastardy of Edward’s children:
Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen,
Only for saying he would make his son
Heir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,
Which, by the sign thereof was termed so.
Moreover, urge his hateful luxury
And bestial appetite in change of lust;
Which stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,
Even where his lustful eye or savage heart,
Without control, listed to make his prey.
Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:
Tell them, when that my mother went with child
Of that unsatiate Edward, noble York
My princely father then had wars in France
And, by just computation of the time,
Found that the issue was not his begot;
Which well appeared in his lineaments,
Being nothing like the noble duke my father:
But touch this sparingly, as ’twere far off,
Because you know, my lord, my mother lives.
BUCKINGHAM

Fear not, my lord, I’ll play the orator
As if the golden fee for which I plead
Were for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.
GLOUCESTER

If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard’s Castle;
Where you shall find me well accompanied
With reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.
BUCKINGHAM

I go: and towards three or four o’clock
Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.
Exit BUCKINGHAM
GLOUCESTER

Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;
To CATESBY
Go thou to Friar Penker; bid them both
Meet me within this hour at Baynard’s Castle.
Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
Now will I in, to take some privy order,
To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;
And to give notice, that no manner of person
At any time have recourse unto the princes.
Exit

SCENE VI. The same.

Enter a Scrivener, with a paper in his hand
Scrivener

This is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;
Which in a set hand fairly is engross’d,
That it may be this day read over in Paul’s.
And mark how well the sequel hangs together:
Eleven hours I spent to write it over,
For yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;
The precedent was full as long a-doing:
And yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,
Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty
Here’s a good world the while! Why who’s so gross,
That seeth not this palpable device?
Yet who’s so blind, but says he sees it not?
Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,
When such bad dealings must be seen in thought.
Exit

SCENE VII. Baynard’s Castle.

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors
GLOUCESTER

How now, my lord, what say the citizens?
BUCKINGHAM

Now, by the holy mother of our Lord,
The citizens are mum and speak not a word.
GLOUCESTER

Touch’d you the bastardy of Edward’s children?
BUCKINGHAM

I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
And his contract by deputy in France;
The insatiate greediness of his desires,
And his enforcement of the city wives;
His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,
As being got, your father then in France,
His resemblance, being not like the duke;
Withal I did infer your lineaments,
Being the right idea of your father,
Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
Your dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,
Your bounty, virtue, fair humility:
Indeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose
Untouch’d, or slightly handled, in discourse
And when mine oratory grew to an end
I bid them that did love their country’s good
Cry ‘God save Richard, England’s royal king!’
GLOUCESTER

Ah! and did they so?
BUCKINGHAM

No, so God help me, they spake not a word;
But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
Gazed each on other, and look’d deadly pale.
Which when I saw, I reprehended them;
And ask’d the mayor what meant this wilful silence:
His answer was, the people were not wont
To be spoke to but by the recorder.
Then he was urged to tell my tale again,
‘Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr’d;’
But nothing spake in warrant from himself.
When he had done, some followers of mine own,
At the lower end of the hall, hurl’d up their caps,
And some ten voices cried ‘God save King Richard!’
And thus I took the vantage of those few,
‘Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,’ quoth I;
‘This general applause and loving shout
Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:’
And even here brake off, and came away.
GLOUCESTER

What tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?
BUCKINGHAM

No, by my troth, my lord.
GLOUCESTER

Will not the mayor then and his brethren come?
BUCKINGHAM

The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;
Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:
And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;
For on that ground I’ll build a holy descant:
And be not easily won to our request:
Play the maid’s part, still answer nay, and take it.
GLOUCESTER

I go; and if you plead as well for them
As I can say nay to thee for myself,
No doubt well bring it to a happy issue.
BUCKINGHAM

Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.
Exit GLOUCESTER
Enter the Lord Mayor and Citizens
Welcome my lord; I dance attendance here;
I think the duke will not be spoke withal.
Enter CATESBY
Here comes his servant: how now, Catesby,
What says he?
CATESBY

My lord: he doth entreat your grace;
To visit him to-morrow or next day:
He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
Divinely bent to meditation;
And no worldly suit would he be moved,
To draw him from his holy exercise.
BUCKINGHAM

Return, good Catesby, to thy lord again;
Tell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,
In deep designs and matters of great moment,
No less importing than our general good,
Are come to have some conference with his grace.
CATESBY

I’ll tell him what you say, my lord.
Exit
BUCKINGHAM

Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,
But on his knees at meditation;
Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
But meditating with two deep divines;
Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:
Happy were England, would this gracious prince
Take on himself the sovereignty thereof:
But, sure, I fear, we shall ne’er win him to it.
Lord Mayor

Marry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!
BUCKINGHAM

I fear he will.
Re-enter CATESBY
How now, Catesby, what says your lord?
CATESBY

My lord,
He wonders to what end you have assembled
Such troops of citizens to speak with him,
His grace not being warn’d thereof before:
My lord, he fears you mean no good to him.
BUCKINGHAM

Sorry I am my noble cousin should
Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:
By heaven, I come in perfect love to him;
And so once more return and tell his grace.
Exit CATESBY
When holy and devout religious men
Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two Bishops. CATESBY returns
Lord Mayor

See, where he stands between two clergymen!
BUCKINGHAM

Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
True ornaments to know a holy man.
Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
Lend favourable ears to our request;
And pardon us the interruption
Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
GLOUCESTER

My lord, there needs no such apology:
I rather do beseech you pardon me,
Who, earnest in the service of my God,
Neglect the visitation of my friends.
But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?
BUCKINGHAM

Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.
GLOUCESTER

I do suspect I have done some offence
That seems disgracious in the city’s eyes,
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
BUCKINGHAM

You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,
At our entreaties, to amend that fault!
GLOUCESTER

Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
BUCKINGHAM

Then know, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The scepter’d office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemished stock:
Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
Which here we waken to our country’s good,
This noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defaced with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf
Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.
Which to recure, we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land,
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another’s gain;
But as successively from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just suit come I to move your grace.
GLOUCESTER

I know not whether to depart in silence,
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof.
Best fitteth my degree or your condition
If not to answer, you might haply think
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
So season’d with your faithful love to me.
Then, on the other side, I cheque’d my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
Definitively thus I answer you.
Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable shuns your high request.
First if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As my ripe revenue and due by birth
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,
As I had rather hide me from my greatness,
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother’d.
But, God be thank’d, there’s no need of me,
And much I need to help you, if need were;
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars;
Which God defend that I should wring from him!
BUCKINGHAM

My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.
You say that Edward is your brother’s son:
So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;
For first he was contract to Lady Lucy–
Your mother lives a witness to that vow–
And afterward by substitute betroth’d
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put by a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother of a many children,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loathed bigamy
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
This Edward, whom our manners term the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that, for reverence to some alive,
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer’d benefit of dignity;
If non to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing times,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.
Lord Mayor

Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.
BUCKINGHAM

Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.
CATESBY

O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
GLOUCESTER

Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty;
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
BUCKINGHAM

If you refuse it,–as, in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, Your brother’s son;
As well we know your tenderness of heart
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kin,
And egally indeed to all estates,–
Yet whether you accept our suit or no,
Your brother’s son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
And in this resolution here we leave you.–
Come, citizens: ‘zounds! I’ll entreat no more.
GLOUCESTER

O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
Exit BUCKINGHAM with the Citizens
CATESBY

Call them again, my lord, and accept their suit.
ANOTHER

Do, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.
GLOUCESTER

Would you enforce me to a world of care?
Well, call them again. I am not made of stone,
But penetrable to your. kind entreats,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest
Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burthen, whether I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load:
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire thereof.
Lord Mayor

God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.
GLOUCESTER

In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
BUCKINGHAM

Then I salute you with this kingly title:
Long live Richard, England’s royal king!
Lord Mayor

Citizens

Amen.
BUCKINGHAM

To-morrow will it please you to be crown’d?
GLOUCESTER

Even when you please, since you will have it so.
BUCKINGHAM

To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:
And so most joyfully we take our leave.
GLOUCESTER

Come, let us to our holy task again.
Farewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends.
Exeunt

ACT IV
SCENE I. Before the Tower.

Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF YORK, and DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of Gloucester, leading Lady Margaret Plantagenet, CLARENCE’s young Daughter
DUCHESS OF YORK

Who m eets us here? my niece Plantagenet
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?
Now, for my life, she’s wandering to the Tower,
On pure heart’s love to greet the tender princes.
Daughter, well met.
LADY ANNE

God give your graces both
A happy and a joyful time of day!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

As much to you, good sister! Whither away?
LADY ANNE

No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,
Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
To gratulate the gentle princes there.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Kind sister, thanks: we’ll enter all together.
Enter BRAKENBURY
And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
How doth the prince, and my young son of York?
BRAKENBURY

Right well, dear madam. By your patience,
I may not suffer you to visit them;
The king hath straitly charged the contrary.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

The king! why, who’s that?
BRAKENBURY

I cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

The Lord protect him from that kingly title!
Hath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?
I am their mother; who should keep me from them?
DUCHESS OF YORK

I am their fathers mother; I will see them.
LADY ANNE

Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:
Then bring me to their sights; I’ll bear thy blame
And take thy office from thee, on my peril.
BRAKENBURY

No, madam, no; I may not leave it so:
I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.
Exit
Enter LORD STANLEY
LORD STANLEY

Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,
And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother,
And reverend looker on, of two fair queens.
To LADY ANNE
Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,
There to be crowned Richard’s royal queen.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart
May have some scope to beat, or else I swoon
With this dead-killing news!
LADY ANNE

Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!
DORSET

Be of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!
Death and destruction dog thee at the heels;
Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.
If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell
Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
Lest thou increase the number of the dead;
And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse,
Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.
LORD STANLEY

Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.
Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
You shall have letters from me to my son
To meet you on the way, and welcome you.
Be not ta’en tardy by unwise delay.
DUCHESS OF YORK

O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatch’d to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
LORD STANLEY

Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.
LADY ANNE

And I in all unwillingness will go.
I would to God that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal that must round my brow
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!
Anointed let me be with deadly venom,
And die, ere men can say, God save the queen!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory
To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
LADY ANNE

No! why? When he that is my husband now
Came to me, as I follow’d Henry’s corse,
When scarce the blood was well wash’d from his hands
Which issued from my other angel husband
And that dead saint which then I weeping follow’d;
O, when, I say, I look’d on Richard’s face,
This was my wish: ‘Be thou,’ quoth I, ‘ accursed,
For making me, so young, so old a widow!
And, when thou wed’st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
And be thy wife–if any be so mad–
As miserable by the life of thee
As thou hast made me by my dear lord’s death!
Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
Even in so short a space, my woman’s heart
Grossly grew captive to his honey words
And proved the subject of my own soul’s curse,
Which ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;
For never yet one hour in his bed
Have I enjoy’d the golden dew of sleep,
But have been waked by his timorous dreams.
Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;
And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.
LADY ANNE

No more than from my soul I mourn for yours.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Farewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!
LADY ANNE

Adieu, poor soul, that takest thy leave of it!
DUCHESS OF YORK

[To DORSET]
Go thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee!
To LADY ANNE
Go thou to Richard, and good angels guard thee!
To QUEEN ELIZABETH
Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee!
I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!
Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,
And each hour’s joy wrecked with a week of teen.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.
Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes
Whom envy hath immured within your walls!
Rough cradle for such little pretty ones!
Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow
For tender princes, use my babies well!
So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.
Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The palace.

Sennet. Enter KING RICHARD III, in pomp, crowned; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY, a page, and others
KING RICHARD III

Stand all apart Cousin of Buckingham!
BUCKINGHAM

My gracious sovereign?
KING RICHARD III

Give me thy hand.
Here he ascendeth his throne
Thus high, by thy advice
And thy assistance, is King Richard seated;
But shall we wear these honours for a day?
Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?
BUCKINGHAM

Still live they and for ever may they last!
KING RICHARD III

O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed
Young Edward lives: think now what I would say.
BUCKINGHAM

Say on, my loving lord.
KING RICHARD III

Why, Buckingham, I say, I would be king,
BUCKINGHAM

Why, so you are, my thrice renowned liege.
KING RICHARD III

Ha! am I king? ’tis so: but Edward lives.
BUCKINGHAM

True, noble prince.
KING RICHARD III

O bitter consequence,
That Edward still should live! ‘True, noble prince!’
Cousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:
Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;
And I would have it suddenly perform’d.
What sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.
BUCKINGHAM

Your grace may do your pleasure.
KING RICHARD III

Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezeth:
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
BUCKINGHAM

Give me some breath, some little pause, my lord
Before I positively herein:
I will resolve your grace immediately.
Exit
CATESBY

[Aside to a stander by]
The king is angry: see, he bites the lip.
KING RICHARD III

I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys: none are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes:
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
Boy!
Page

My lord?
KING RICHARD III

Know’st thou not any whom corrupting gold
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death?
Page

My lord, I know a discontented gentleman,
Whose humble means match not his haughty mind:
Gold were as good as twenty orators,
And will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.
KING RICHARD III

What is his name?
Page

His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.
KING RICHARD III

I partly know the man: go, call him hither.
Exit Page
The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
No more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:
Hath he so long held out with me untired,
And stops he now for breath?
Enter STANLEY
How now! what news with you?
STANLEY

My lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset’s fled
To Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea
Where he abides.
Stands apart
KING RICHARD III

Catesby!
CATESBY

My lord?
KING RICHARD III

Rumour it abroad
That Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:
I will take order for her keeping close.
Inquire me out some mean-born gentleman,
Whom I will marry straight to Clarence’ daughter:
The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.
Look, how thou dream’st! I say again, give out
That Anne my wife is sick and like to die:
About it; for it stands me much upon,
To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.
Exit CATESBY
I must be married to my brother’s daughter,
Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
Murder her brothers, and then marry her!
Uncertain way of gain! But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
Re-enter Page, with TYRREL
Is thy name Tyrrel?
TYRREL

James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.
KING RICHARD III

Art thou, indeed?
TYRREL

Prove me, my gracious sovereign.
KING RICHARD III

Darest thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?
TYRREL

Ay, my lord;
But I had rather kill two enemies.
KING RICHARD III

Why, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,
Foes to my rest and my sweet sleep’s disturbers
Are they that I would have thee deal upon:
Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
TYRREL

Let me have open means to come to them,
And soon I’ll rid you from the fear of them.
KING RICHARD III

Thou sing’st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel
Go, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:
Whispers
There is no more but so: say it is done,
And I will love thee, and prefer thee too.
TYRREL

‘Tis done, my gracious lord.
KING RICHARD III

Shall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, ere we sleep?
TYRREL

Ye shall, my Lord.
Exit
Re-enter BUCKINGHAM
BUCKINGHAM

My Lord, I have consider’d in my mind
The late demand that you did sound me in.
KING RICHARD III

Well, let that pass. Dorset is fled to Richmond.
BUCKINGHAM

I hear that news, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

Stanley, he is your wife’s son well, look to it.
BUCKINGHAM

My lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,
For which your honour and your faith is pawn’d;
The earldom of Hereford and the moveables
The which you promised I should possess.
KING RICHARD III

Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey
Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.
BUCKINGHAM

What says your highness to my just demand?
KING RICHARD III

As I remember, Henry the Sixth
Did prophesy that Richmond should be king,
When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
A king, perhaps, perhaps,–
BUCKINGHAM

My lord!
KING RICHARD III

How chance the prophet could not at that time
Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?
BUCKINGHAM

My lord, your promise for the earldom,–
KING RICHARD III

Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
The mayor in courtesy show’d me the castle,
And call’d it Rougemont: at which name I started,
Because a bard of Ireland told me once
I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
BUCKINGHAM

My Lord!
KING RICHARD III

Ay, what’s o’clock?
BUCKINGHAM

I am thus bold to put your grace in mind
Of what you promised me.
KING RICHARD III

Well, but what’s o’clock?
BUCKINGHAM

Upon the stroke of ten.
KING RICHARD III

Well, let it strike.
BUCKINGHAM

Why let it strike?
KING RICHARD III

Because that, like a Jack, thou keep’st the stroke
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
I am not in the giving vein to-day.
BUCKINGHAM

Why, then resolve me whether you will or no.
KING RICHARD III

Tut, tut,
Thou troublest me; am not in the vein.
Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM
BUCKINGHAM

Is it even so? rewards he my true service
With such deep contempt made I him king for this?
O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone
To Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!
Exit

SCENE III. The same.

Enter TYRREL
TYRREL

The tyrannous and bloody deed is done.
The most arch of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this ruthless piece of butchery,
Although they were flesh’d villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and kind compassion
Wept like two children in their deaths’ sad stories.
‘Lo, thus’ quoth Dighton, ‘lay those tender babes:’
‘Thus, thus,’ quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another
Within their innocent alabaster arms:
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kiss’d each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
Which once,’ quoth Forrest, ‘almost changed my mind;
But O! the devil’–there the villain stopp’d
Whilst Dighton thus told on: ‘We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation e’er she framed.’
Thus both are gone with conscience and remorse;
They could not speak; and so I left them both,
To bring this tidings to the bloody king.
And here he comes.
Enter KING RICHARD III
All hail, my sovereign liege!
KING RICHARD III

Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?
TYRREL

If to have done the thing you gave in charge
Beget your happiness, be happy then,
For it is done, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

But didst thou see them dead?
TYRREL

I did, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

And buried, gentle Tyrrel?
TYRREL

The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;
But how or in what place I do not know.
KING RICHARD III

Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,
And thou shalt tell the process of their death.
Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy desire.
Farewell till soon.
Exit TYRREL
The son of Clarence have I pent up close;
His daughter meanly have I match’d in marriage;
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,
And Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.
Now, for I know the Breton Richmond aims
At young Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,
And, by that knot, looks proudly o’er the crown,
To her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.
Enter CATESBY
CATESBY

My lord!
KING RICHARD III

Good news or bad, that thou comest in so bluntly?
CATESBY

Bad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;
And Buckingham, back’d with the hardy Welshmen,
Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.
KING RICHARD III

Ely with Richmond troubles me more near
Than Buckingham and his rash-levied army.
Come, I have heard that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove’s Mercury, and herald for a king!
Come, muster men: my counsel is my shield;
We must be brief when traitors brave the field.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Before the palace.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET
QUEEN MARGARET

So, now prosperity begins to mellow
And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
Here in these confines slily have I lurk’d,
To watch the waning of mine adversaries.
A dire induction am I witness to,
And will to France, hoping the consequence
Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!
If yet your gentle souls fly in the air
And be not fix’d in doom perpetual,
Hover about me with your airy wings
And hear your mother’s lamentation!
QUEEN MARGARET

Hover about her; say, that right for right
Hath dimm’d your infant morn to aged night.
DUCHESS OF YORK

So many miseries have crazed my voice,
That my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,
Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?
QUEEN MARGARET

Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet.
Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,
And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?
QUEEN MARGARET

When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,
Woe’s scene, world’s shame, grave’s due by life usurp’d,
Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth,
Sitting down
Unlawfully made drunk with innocents’ blood!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
O, who hath any cause to mourn but I?
Sitting down by her
QUEEN MARGARET

If ancient sorrow be most reverend,
Give mine the benefit of seniory,
And let my woes frown on the upper hand.
If sorrow can admit society,
Sitting down with them
Tell o’er your woes again by viewing mine:
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;
I had a Harry, till a Richard kill’d him:
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;
DUCHESS OF YORK

I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
I had a Rutland too, thou holp’st to kill him.
QUEEN MARGARET

Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill’d him.
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,
That foul defacer of God’s handiwork,
That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,
That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,
Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.
O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur
Preys on the issue of his mother’s body,
And makes her pew-fellow with others’ moan!
DUCHESS OF YORK

O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes!
God witness with me, I have wept for thine.
QUEEN MARGARET

Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead, that stabb’d my Edward:
Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
Young York he is but boot, because both they
Match not the high perfection of my loss:
Thy Clarence he is dead that kill’d my Edward;
And the beholders of this tragic play,
The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
Untimely smother’d in their dusky graves.
Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,
Only reserved their factor, to buy souls
And send them thither: but at hand, at hand,
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end:
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.
To have him suddenly convey’d away.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O, thou didst prophesy the time would come
That I should wish for thee to help me curse
That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back’d toad!
QUEEN MARGARET

I call’d thee then vain flourish of my fortune;
I call’d thee then poor shadow, painted queen;
The presentation of but what I was;
The flattering index of a direful pageant;
One heaved a-high, to be hurl’d down below;
A mother only mock’d with two sweet babes;
A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,
A sign of dignity, a garish flag,
To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?
Where are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?
Who sues to thee and cries ‘God save the queen’?
Where be the bending peers that flatter’d thee?
Where be the thronging troops that follow’d thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For queen, a very caitiff crown’d with care;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For one that scorn’d at me, now scorn’d of me;
For one being fear’d of all, now fearing one;
For one commanding all, obey’d of none.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel’d about,
And left thee but a very prey to time;
Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
Now thy proud neck bears half my burthen’d yoke;
From which even here I slip my weary neck,
And leave the burthen of it all on thee.
Farewell, York’s wife, and queen of sad mischance:
These English woes will make me smile in France.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O thou well skill’d in curses, stay awhile,
And teach me how to curse mine enemies!
QUEEN MARGARET

Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;
Compare dead happiness with living woe;
Think that thy babes were fairer than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is:
Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

My words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!
QUEEN MARGARET

Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.
Exit
DUCHESS OF YORK

Why should calamity be full of words?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Windy attorneys to their client woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
Poor breathing orators of miseries!
Let them have scope: though what they do impart
Help not all, yet do they ease the heart.
DUCHESS OF YORK

If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.
And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother
My damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother’d.
I hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.
Enter KING RICHARD III, marching, with drums and trumpets
KING RICHARD III

Who intercepts my expedition?
DUCHESS OF YORK

O, she that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Hidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,
Where should be graven, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,
And the dire death of my two sons and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?
DUCHESS OF YORK

Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?
And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Where is kind Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?
KING RICHARD III

A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord’s enointed: strike, I say!
Flourish. Alarums
Either be patient, and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Art thou my son?
KING RICHARD III

Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Then patiently hear my impatience.
KING RICHARD III

Madam, I have a touch of your condition,
Which cannot brook the accent of reproof.
DUCHESS OF YORK

O, let me speak!
KING RICHARD III

Do then: but I’ll not hear.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I will be mild and gentle in my speech.
KING RICHARD III

And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Art thou so hasty? I have stay’d for thee,
God knows, in anguish, pain and agony.
KING RICHARD III

And came I not at last to comfort you?
DUCHESS OF YORK

No, by the holy rood, thou know’st it well,
Thou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.
A grievous burthen was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,
Thy age confirm’d, proud, subdued, bloody,
treacherous,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:
What comfortable hour canst thou name,
That ever graced me in thy company?
KING RICHARD III

Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call’d
your grace
To breakfast once forth of my company.
If I be so disgracious in your sight,
Let me march on, and not offend your grace.
Strike the drum.
DUCHESS OF YORK

I prithee, hear me speak.
KING RICHARD III

You speak too bitterly.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Hear me a word;
For I shall never speak to thee again.
KING RICHARD III

So.
DUCHESS OF YORK

Either thou wilt die, by God’s just ordinance,
Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror,
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish
And never look upon thy face again.
Therefore take with thee my most heavy curse;
Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more
Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st!
My prayers on the adverse party fight;
And there the little souls of Edward’s children
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies
And promise them success and victory.
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;
Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.
Exit
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Though far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse
Abides in me; I say amen to all.
KING RICHARD III

Stay, madam; I must speak a word with you.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

I have no more sons of the royal blood
For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;
And therefore level not to hit their lives.
KING RICHARD III

You have a daughter call’d Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

And must she die for this? O, let her live,
And I’ll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;
Slander myself as false to Edward’s bed;
Throw over her the veil of infamy:
So she may live unscarr’d of bleeding slaughter,
I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.
KING RICHARD III

Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

To save her life, I’ll say she is not so.
KING RICHARD III

Her life is only safest in her birth.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

And only in that safety died her brothers.
KING RICHARD III

Lo, at their births good stars were opposite.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

No, to their lives bad friends were contrary.
KING RICHARD III

All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

True, when avoided grace makes destiny:
My babes were destined to a fairer death,
If grace had bless’d thee with a fairer life.
KING RICHARD III

You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen’d
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
Till that my nails were anchor’d in thine eyes;
And I, in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
KING RICHARD III

Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise
And dangerous success of bloody wars,
As I intend more good to you and yours,
Than ever you or yours were by me wrong’d!
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What good is cover’d with the face of heaven,
To be discover’d, that can do me good?
KING RICHARD III

The advancement of your children, gentle lady.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?
KING RICHARD III

No, to the dignity and height of honour
The high imperial type of this earth’s glory.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Flatter my sorrows with report of it;
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise to any child of mine?
KING RICHARD III

Even all I have; yea, and myself and all,
Will I withal endow a child of thine;
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
Which thou supposest I have done to thee.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Be brief, lest that be process of thy kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness’ date.
KING RICHARD III

Then know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

My daughter’s mother thinks it with her soul.
KING RICHARD III

What do you think?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:
So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers;
And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.
KING RICHARD III

Be not so hasty to confound my meaning:
I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,
And mean to make her queen of England.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Say then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?
KING RICHARD III

Even he that makes her queen who should be else?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What, thou?
KING RICHARD III

I, even I: what think you of it, madam?
QUEEN ELIZABETH

How canst thou woo her?
KING RICHARD III

That would I learn of you,
As one that are best acquainted with her humour.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

And wilt thou learn of me?
KING RICHARD III

Madam, with all my heart.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,
A pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave
Edward and York; then haply she will weep:
Therefore present to her–as sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steep’d in Rutland’s blood,–
A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
The purple sap from her sweet brother’s body
And bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.
If this inducement force her not to love,
Send her a story of thy noble acts;
Tell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,
Her uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,
Madest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
KING RICHARD III

Come, come, you mock me; this is not the way
To win our daughter.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

There is no other way
Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,
And not be Richard that hath done all this.
KING RICHARD III

Say that I did all this for love of her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.
KING RICHARD III

Look, what is done cannot be now amended:
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after hours give leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.
If I have kill’d the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase, I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter
A grandam’s name is little less in love
Than is the doting title of a mother;
They are as children but one step below,
Even of your mettle, of your very blood;
Of an one pain, save for a night of groans
Endured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss you have is but a son being king,
And by that loss your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would,
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity:
The king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repair’d with double riches of content.
What! we have many goodly days to see:
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl,
Advantaging their loan with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go, then my mother, to thy daughter go
Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale
Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brain’d Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed;
To whom I will retail my conquest won,
And she shall be sole victress, Caesar’s Caesar.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

What were I best to say? her father’s brother
Would be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?
Or, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,
That God, the law, my honour and her love,
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?
KING RICHARD III

Infer fair England’s peace by this alliance.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Which she shall purchase with still lasting war.
KING RICHARD III

Say that the king, which may command, entreats.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

That at her hands which the king’s King forbids.
KING RICHARD III

Say, she shall be a high and mighty queen.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

To wail the tide, as her mother doth.
KING RICHARD III

Say, I will love her everlastingly.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long shall that title ‘ever’ last?
KING RICHARD III

Sweetly in force unto her fair life’s end.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But how long fairly shall her sweet lie last?
KING RICHARD III

So long as heaven and nature lengthens it.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

So long as hell and Richard likes of it.
KING RICHARD III

Say, I, her sovereign, am her subject love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But she, your subject, loathes such sovereignty.
KING RICHARD III

Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
KING RICHARD III

Then in plain terms tell her my loving tale.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.
KING RICHARD III

Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

O no, my reasons are too deep and dead;
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their grave.
KING RICHARD III

Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Harp on it still shall I till heart-strings break.
KING RICHARD III

Now, by my George, my garter, and my crown,–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Profaned, dishonour’d, and the third usurp’d.
KING RICHARD III

I swear–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

By nothing; for this is no oath:
The George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;
The garter, blemish’d, pawn’d his knightly virtue;
The crown, usurp’d, disgraced his kingly glory.
if something thou wilt swear to be believed,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong’d.
KING RICHARD III

Now, by the world–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

‘Tis full of thy foul wrongs.
KING RICHARD III

My father’s death–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Thy life hath that dishonour’d.
KING RICHARD III

Then, by myself–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Thyself thyself misusest.
KING RICHARD III

Why then, by God–
QUEEN ELIZABETH

God’s wrong is most of all.
If thou hadst fear’d to break an oath by Him,
The unity the king thy brother made
Had not been broken, nor my brother slain:
If thou hadst fear’d to break an oath by Him,
The imperial metal, circling now thy brow,
Had graced the tender temples of my child,
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, two tender playfellows to dust,
Thy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?
KING RICHARD III

The time to come.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

That thou hast wronged in the time o’erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wrong’d by thee.
The children live, whose parents thou hast
slaughter’d,
Ungovern’d youth, to wail it in their age;
The parents live, whose children thou hast butcher’d,
Old wither’d plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast
Misused ere used, by time misused o’erpast.
KING RICHARD III

As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt
Of hostile arms! myself myself confound!
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!
Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceedings, if, with pure heart’s love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!
In her consists my happiness and thine;
Without her, follows to this land and me,
To thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin and decay:
It cannot be avoided but by this;
It will not be avoided but by this.
Therefore, good mother,–I must can you so–
Be the attorney of my love to her:
Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve:
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish-fond in great designs.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?
KING RICHARD III

Ay, if the devil tempt thee to do good.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Shall I forget myself to be myself?
KING RICHARD III

Ay, if yourself’s remembrance wrong yourself.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

But thou didst kill my children.
KING RICHARD III

But in your daughter’s womb I bury them:
Where in that nest of spicery they shall breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?
KING RICHARD III

And be a happy mother by the deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH

I go. Write to me very shortly.
And you shall understand from me her mind.
KING RICHARD III

Bear her my true love’s kiss; and so, farewell.
Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH
Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!
Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following
How now! what news?
RATCLIFF

My gracious sovereign, on the western coast
Rideth a puissant navy; to the shore
Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,
Unarm’d, and unresolved to beat them back:
‘Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;
And there they hull, expecting but the aid
Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.
KING RICHARD III

Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:
Ratcliff, thyself, or Catesby; where is he?
CATESBY

Here, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

Fly to the duke:
To RATCLIFF
Post thou to Salisbury
When thou comest thither–
To CATESBY
Dull, unmindful villain,
Why stand’st thou still, and go’st not to the duke?
CATESBY

First, mighty sovereign, let me know your mind,
What from your grace I shall deliver to him.
KING RICHARD III

O, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight
The greatest strength and power he can make,
And meet me presently at Salisbury.
CATESBY

I go.
Exit
RATCLIFF

What is’t your highness’ pleasure I shall do at
Salisbury?
KING RICHARD III

Why, what wouldst thou do there before I go?
RATCLIFF

Your highness told me I should post before.
KING RICHARD III

My mind is changed, sir, my mind is changed.
Enter STANLEY
How now, what news with you?
STANLEY

None good, my lord, to please you with the hearing;
Nor none so bad, but it may well be told.
KING RICHARD III

Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!
Why dost thou run so many mile about,
When thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?
Once more, what news?
STANLEY

Richmond is on the seas.
KING RICHARD III

There let him sink, and be the seas on him!
White-liver’d runagate, what doth he there?
STANLEY

I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.
KING RICHARD III

Well, sir, as you guess, as you guess?
STANLEY

Stirr’d up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Ely,
He makes for England, there to claim the crown.
KING RICHARD III

Is the chair empty? is the sword unsway’d?
Is the king dead? the empire unpossess’d?
What heir of York is there alive but we?
And who is England’s king but great York’s heir?
Then, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?
STANLEY

Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.
KING RICHARD III

Unless for that he comes to be your liege,
You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
Thou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.
STANLEY

No, mighty liege; therefore mistrust me not.
KING RICHARD III

Where is thy power, then, to beat him back?
Where are thy tenants and thy followers?
Are they not now upon the western shore.
Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships!
STANLEY

No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.
KING RICHARD III

Cold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,
When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
STANLEY

They have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:
Please it your majesty to give me leave,
I’ll muster up my friends, and meet your grace
Where and what time your majesty shall please.
KING RICHARD III

Ay, ay. thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond:
I will not trust you, sir.
STANLEY

Most mighty sovereign,
You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:
I never was nor never will be false.
KING RICHARD III

Well,
Go muster men; but, hear you, leave behind
Your son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.
Or else his head’s assurance is but frail.
STANLEY

So deal with him as I prove true to you.
Exit
Enter a Messenger
Messenger

My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,
As I by friends am well advertised,
Sir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate
Bishop of Exeter, his brother there,
With many more confederates, are in arms.
Enter another Messenger
Second Messenger

My liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;
And every hour more competitors
Flock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.
Enter another Messenger
Third Messenger

My lord, the army of the Duke of Buckingham–
KING RICHARD III

Out on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?
He striketh him
Take that, until thou bring me better news.
Third Messenger

The news I have to tell your majesty
Is, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,
Buckingham’s army is dispersed and scatter’d;
And he himself wander’d away alone,
No man knows whither.
KING RICHARD III

I cry thee mercy:
There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.
Hath any well-advised friend proclaim’d
Reward to him that brings the traitor in?
Third Messenger

Such proclamation hath been made, my liege.
Enter another Messenger
Fourth Messenger

Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,
‘Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.
Yet this good comfort bring I to your grace,
The Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:
Richmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat
Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks
If they were his assistants, yea or no;
Who answer’d him, they came from Buckingham.
Upon his party: he, mistrusting them,
Hoisted sail and made away for Brittany.
KING RICHARD III

March on, march on, since we are up in arms;
If not to fight with foreign enemies,
Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.
Re-enter CATESBY
CATESBY

My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;
That is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond
Is with a mighty power landed at Milford,
Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.
KING RICHARD III

Away towards Salisbury! while we reason here,
A royal battle might be won and lost
Some one take order Buckingham be brought
To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.
Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE V. Lord Derby’s house.

Enter DERBY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK
DERBY

Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:
That in the sty of this most bloody boar
My son George Stanley is frank’d up in hold:
If I revolt, off goes young George’s head;
The fear of that withholds my present aid.
But, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?
CHRISTOPHER

At Pembroke, or at Harford-west, in Wales.
DERBY

What men of name resort to him?
CHRISTOPHER

Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;
Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;
Oxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,
And Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;
And many more of noble fame and worth:
And towards London they do bend their course,
If by the way they be not fought withal.
DERBY

Return unto thy lord; commend me to him:
Tell him the queen hath heartily consented
He shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
These letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.
Exeunt

ACT V
SCENE I. Salisbury. An open place.

Enter the Sheriff, and BUCKINGHAM, with halberds, led to execution
BUCKINGHAM

Will not King Richard let me speak with him?
Sheriff

No, my good lord; therefore be patient.
BUCKINGHAM

Hastings, and Edward’s children, Rivers, Grey,
Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
By underhand corrupted foul injustice,
If that your moody discontented souls
Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
Even for revenge mock my destruction!
This is All-Souls’ day, fellows, is it not?
Sheriff

It is, my lord.
BUCKINGHAM

Why, then All-Souls’ day is my body’s doomsday.
This is the day that, in King Edward’s time,
I wish’t might fall on me, when I was found
False to his children or his wife’s allies
This is the day wherein I wish’d to fall
By the false faith of him I trusted most;
This, this All-Souls’ day to my fearful soul
Is the determined respite of my wrongs:
That high All-Seer that I dallied with
Hath turn’d my feigned prayer on my head
And given in earnest what I begg’d in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters’ bosoms:
Now Margaret’s curse is fallen upon my head;
‘When he,’ quoth she, ‘shall split thy heart with sorrow,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.’
Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.
Exeunt

SCENE II. The camp near Tamworth.

Enter RICHMOND, OXFORD, BLUNT, HERBERT, and others, with drum and colours
RICHMOND

Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
Bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we march’d on without impediment;
And here receive we from our father Stanley
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
That spoil’d your summer fields and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowell’d bosoms, this foul swine
Lies now even in the centre of this isle,
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn
From Tamworth thither is but one day’s march.
In God’s name, cheerly on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
OXFORD

Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords,
To fight against that bloody homicide.
HERBERT

I doubt not but his friends will fly to us.
BLUNT

He hath no friends but who are friends for fear.
Which in his greatest need will shrink from him.
RICHMOND

All for our vantage. Then, in God’s name, march:
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings:
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Bosworth Field.

Enter KING RICHARD III in arms, with NORFOLK, SURREY, and others
KING RICHARD III

Here pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.
My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?
SURREY

My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.
KING RICHARD III

My Lord of Norfolk,–
NORFOLK

Here, most gracious liege.
KING RICHARD III

Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not?
NORFOLK

We must both give and take, my gracious lord.
KING RICHARD III

Up with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;
But where to-morrow? Well, all’s one for that.
Who hath descried the number of the foe?
NORFOLK

Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.
KING RICHARD III

Why, our battalion trebles that account:
Besides, the king’s name is a tower of strength,
Which they upon the adverse party want.
Up with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,
Let us survey the vantage of the field
Call for some men of sound direction
Let’s want no discipline, make no delay,
For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.
Exeunt
Enter, on the other side of the field, RICHMOND, Sir William Brandon, OXFORD, and others. Some of the Soldiers pitch RICHMOND’s tent
RICHMOND

The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And by the bright track of his fiery car,
Gives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.
Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.
Give me some ink and paper in my tent
I’ll draw the form and model of our battle,
Limit each leader to his several charge,
And part in just proportion our small strength.
My Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,
And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.
The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:
Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him
And by the second hour in the morning
Desire the earl to see me in my tent:
Yet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go’st,
Where is Lord Stanley quarter’d, dost thou know?
BLUNT

Unless I have mista’en his colours much,
Which well I am assured I have not done,
His regiment lies half a mile at least
South from the mighty power of the king.
RICHMOND

If without peril it be possible,
Good Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,
And give him from me this most needful scroll.
BLUNT

Upon my life, my lord, I’ll under-take it;
And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!
RICHMOND

Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,
Let us consult upon to-morrow’s business
In to our tent; the air is raw and cold.
They withdraw into the tent
Enter, to his tent, KING RICHARD III, NORFOLK, RATCLIFF, CATESBY, and others
KING RICHARD III

What is’t o’clock?
CATESBY

It’s supper-time, my lord;
It’s nine o’clock.
KING RICHARD III

I will not sup to-night.
Give me some ink and paper.
What, is my beaver easier than it was?
And all my armour laid into my tent?
CATESBY

If is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.
KING RICHARD III

Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;
Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.
NORFOLK

I go, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.
NORFOLK

I warrant you, my lord.
Exit
KING RICHARD III

Catesby!
CATESBY

My lord?
KING RICHARD III

Send out a pursuivant at arms
To Stanley’s regiment; bid him bring his power
Before sunrising, lest his son George fall
Into the blind cave of eternal night.
Exit CATESBY
Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.
Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.
Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.
Ratcliff!
RATCLIFF

My lord?
KING RICHARD III

Saw’st thou the melancholy Lord Northumberland?
RATCLIFF

Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,
Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop
Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.
KING RICHARD III

So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:
I have not that alacrity of spirit,
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.
Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?
RATCLIFF

It is, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

Bid my guard watch; leave me.
Ratcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent
And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.
Exeunt RATCLIFF and the other Attendants
Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent, Lords and others attending
DERBY

Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!
RICHMOND

All comfort that the dark night can afford
Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!
Tell me, how fares our loving mother?
DERBY

I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother
Who prays continually for Richmond’s good:
So much for that. The silent hours steal on,
And flaky darkness breaks within the east.
In brief,–for so the season bids us be,–
Prepare thy battle early in the morning,
And put thy fortune to the arbitrement
Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.
I, as I may–that which I would I cannot,–
With best advantage will deceive the time,
And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:
But on thy side I may not be too forward
Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,
Be executed in his father’s sight.
Farewell: the leisure and the fearful time
Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love
And ample interchange of sweet discourse,
Which so long sunder’d friends should dwell upon:
God give us leisure for these rites of love!
Once more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!
RICHMOND

Good lords, conduct him to his regiment:
I’ll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,
Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,
When I should mount with wings of victory:
Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.
Exeunt all but RICHMOND
O Thou, whose captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,
That they may crush down with a heavy fall
The usurping helmets of our adversaries!
Make us thy ministers of chastisement,
That we may praise thee in the victory!
To thee I do commend my watchful soul,
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes:
Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!
Sleeps
Enter the Ghost of Prince Edward, son to King Henry VI
Ghost
of Prince Edward

[To KING RICHARD III]
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!
Think, how thou stab’dst me in my prime of youth
At Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die!
To RICHMOND
Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged souls
Of butcher’d princes fight in thy behalf
King Henry’s issue, Richmond, comforts thee.
Enter the Ghost of King Henry VI
Ghost
of King Henry VI

[To KING RICHARD III]
When I was mortal, my anointed body
By thee was punched full of deadly holes
Think on the Tower and me: despair, and die!
Harry the Sixth bids thee despair, and die!
To RICHMOND
Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!
Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king,
Doth comfort thee in thy sleep: live, and flourish!
Enter the Ghost of CLARENCE
Ghost of CLARENCE

[To KING RICHARD III]
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!
I, that was wash’d to death with fulsome wine,
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death!
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!–
To RICHMOND
Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster
The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee
Good angels guard thy battle! live, and flourish!
Enter the Ghosts of RIVERS, GRAY, and VAUGHAN
Ghost of RIVERS

[To KING RICHARD III]
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow,
Rivers. that died at Pomfret! despair, and die!
Ghost of GREY

[To KING RICHARD III]
Think upon Grey, and let thy soul despair!
Ghost of VAUGHAN

[To KING RICHARD III]
Think upon Vaughan, and, with guilty fear,
Let fall thy lance: despair, and die!
All

[To RICHMOND]
Awake, and think our wrongs in Richard’s bosom
Will conquer him! awake, and win the day!
Enter the Ghost of HASTINGS
Ghost of HASTINGS

[To KING RICHARD III]
Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,
And in a bloody battle end thy days!
Think on Lord Hastings: despair, and die!
To RICHMOND
Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!
Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England’s sake!
Enter the Ghosts of the two young Princes
Ghosts
of young Princes

[To KING RICHARD III]
Dream on thy cousins smother’d in the Tower:
Let us be led within thy bosom, Richard,
And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!
Thy nephews’ souls bid thee despair and die!
To RICHMOND
Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy;
Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy!
Live, and beget a happy race of kings!
Edward’s unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.
Enter the Ghost of LADY ANNE
Ghost of LADY ANNE

[To KING RICHARD III]
Richard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,
That never slept a quiet hour with thee,
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!
To RICHMOND
Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep
Dream of success and happy victory!
Thy adversary’s wife doth pray for thee.
Enter the Ghost of BUCKINGHAM
Ghost
of BUCKINGHAM

[To KING RICHARD III]
The last was I that helped thee to the crown;
The last was I that felt thy tyranny:
O, in the battle think on Buckingham,
And die in terror of thy guiltiness!
Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death:
Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!
To RICHMOND
I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid:
But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay’d:
God and good angel fight on Richmond’s side;
And Richard falls in height of all his pride.
The Ghosts vanish
KING RICHARD III starts out of his dream
KING RICHARD III

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
Have mercy, Jesu!–Soft! I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself? there’s none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high’st degree
Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder’d
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow’s vengeance on the head of Richard.
Enter RATCLIFF
RATCLIFF

My lord!
KING RICHARD III

‘Zounds! who is there?
RATCLIFF

Ratcliff, my lord; ’tis I. The early village-cock
Hath twice done salutation to the morn;
Your friends are up, and buckle on their armour.
KING RICHARD III

O Ratcliff, I have dream’d a fearful dream!
What thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?
RATCLIFF

No doubt, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,–
RATCLIFF

Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.
KING RICHARD III

By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.
It is not yet near day. Come, go with me;
Under our tents I’ll play the eaves-dropper,
To see if any mean to shrink from me.
Exeunt
Enter the Lords to RICHMOND, sitting in his tent
LORDS

Good morrow, Richmond!
RICHMOND

Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,
That you have ta’en a tardy sluggard here.
LORDS

How have you slept, my lord?
RICHMOND

The sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams
That ever enter’d in a drowsy head,
Have I since your departure had, my lords.
Methought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder’d,
Came to my tent, and cried on victory:
I promise you, my soul is very jocund
In the remembrance of so fair a dream.
How far into the morning is it, lords?
LORDS

Upon the stroke of four.
RICHMOND

Why, then ’tis time to arm and give direction.
His oration to his soldiers
More than I have said, loving countrymen,
The leisure and enforcement of the time
Forbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,
God and our good cause fight upon our side;
The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,
Like high-rear’d bulwarks, stand before our faces;
Richard except, those whom we fight against
Had rather have us win than him they follow:
For what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
One raised in blood, and one in blood establish’d;
One that made means to come by what he hath,
And slaughter’d those that were the means to help him;
Abase foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England’s chair, where he is falsely set;
One that hath ever been God’s enemy:
Then, if you fight against God’s enemy,
God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;
If you do fight against your country’s foes,
Your country’s fat shall pay your pains the hire;
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;
If you do free your children from the sword,
Your children’s children quit it in your age.
Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.
For me, the ransom of my bold attempt
Shall be this cold corpse on the earth’s cold face;
But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt
The least of you shall share his part thereof.
Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!
Exeunt
Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants and Forces
KING RICHARD III

What said Northumberland as touching Richmond?
RATCLIFF

That he was never trained up in arms.
KING RICHARD III

He said the truth: and what said Surrey then?
RATCLIFF

He smiled and said ‘The better for our purpose.’
KING RICHARD III

He was in the right; and so indeed it is.
Clock striketh
Ten the clock there. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun to-day?
RATCLIFF

Not I, my lord.
KING RICHARD III

Then he disdains to shine; for by the book
He should have braved the east an hour ago
A black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!
RATCLIFF

My lord?
KING RICHARD III

The sun will not be seen to-day;
The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
I would these dewy tears were from the ground.
Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me
More than to Richmond? for the selfsame heaven
That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.
Enter NORFOLK
NORFOLK

Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.
KING RICHARD III

Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.
Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:
I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
And thus my battle shall be ordered:
My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,
Consisting equally of horse and foot;
Our archers shall be placed in the midst
John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,
Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.
They thus directed, we will follow
In the main battle, whose puissance on either side
Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.
This, and Saint George to boot! What think’st thou, Norfolk?
NORFOLK

A good direction, warlike sovereign.
This found I on my tent this morning.
He sheweth him a paper
KING RICHARD III

[Reads]
‘Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold,
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.’
A thing devised by the enemy.
Go, gentleman, every man unto his charge
Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls:
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
March on, join bravely, let us to’t pell-mell
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
His oration to his Army
What shall I say more than I have inferr’d?
Remember whom you are to cope withal;
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
A scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o’er-cloyed country vomits forth
To desperate ventures and assured destruction.
You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;
You having lands, and blest with beauteous wives,
They would restrain the one, distain the other.
And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
Long kept in Bretagne at our mother’s cost?
A milk-sop, one that never in his life
Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?
Let’s whip these stragglers o’er the seas again;
Lash hence these overweening rags of France,
These famish’d beggars, weary of their lives;
Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,
For want of means, poor rats, had hang’d themselves:
If we be conquer’d, let men conquer us,
And not these bastard Bretons; whom our fathers
Have in their own land beaten, bobb’d, and thump’d,
And in record, left them the heirs of shame.
Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives?
Ravish our daughters?
Drum afar off
Hark! I hear their drum.
Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yoemen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
Enter a Messenger
What says Lord Stanley? will he bring his power?
Messenger

My lord, he doth deny to come.
KING RICHARD III

Off with his son George’s head!
NORFOLK

My lord, the enemy is past the marsh
After the battle let George Stanley die.
KING RICHARD III

A thousand hearts are great within my bosom:
Advance our standards, set upon our foes
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
Upon them! victory sits on our helms.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the field.

Alarum: excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces fighting; to him CATESBY
CATESBY

Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger:
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!
Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD III
KING RICHARD III

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY

Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse.
KING RICHARD III

Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the field.

Alarum. Enter KING RICHARD III and RICHMOND; they fight. KING RICHARD III is slain. Retreat and flourish. Re-enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown, with divers other Lords
RICHMOND

God and your arms be praised, victorious friends,
The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
DERBY

Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.
Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty
From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
Have I pluck’d off, to grace thy brows withal:
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
RICHMOND

Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!
But, tell me, is young George Stanley living?
DERBY

He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;
Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
RICHMOND

What men of name are slain on either side?
DERBY

John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,
Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.
RICHMOND

Inter their bodies as becomes their births:
Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled
That in submission will return to us:
And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,
We will unite the white rose and the red:
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
That long have frown’d upon their enmity!
What traitor hears me, and says not amen?
England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood,
The father rashly slaughter’d his own son,
The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire:
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God’s fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.
Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,
With smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land’s increase
That would with treason wound this fair land’s peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp’d, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen!
Exeunt

Cymbeline: Entire Play
Cymbeline

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ACT I
SCENE I. Britain. The garden of Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter two Gentlemen
First Gentleman

You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king.
Second Gentleman

But what’s the matter?
First Gentleman

His daughter, and the heir of’s kingdom, whom
He purposed to his wife’s sole son–a widow
That late he married–hath referr’d herself
Unto a poor but worthy gentleman: she’s wedded;
Her husband banish’d; she imprison’d: all
Is outward sorrow; though I think the king
Be touch’d at very heart.
Second Gentleman

None but the king?
First Gentleman

He that hath lost her too; so is the queen,
That most desired the match; but not a courtier,
Although they wear their faces to the bent
Of the king’s look’s, hath a heart that is not
Glad at the thing they scowl at.
Second Gentleman

And why so?
First Gentleman

He that hath miss’d the princess is a thing
Too bad for bad report: and he that hath her–
I mean, that married her, alack, good man!
And therefore banish’d–is a creature such
As, to seek through the regions of the earth
For one his like, there would be something failing
In him that should compare. I do not think
So fair an outward and such stuff within
Endows a man but he.
Second Gentleman

You speak him far.
First Gentleman

I do extend him, sir, within himself,
Crush him together rather than unfold
His measure duly.
Second Gentleman

What’s his name and birth?
First Gentleman

I cannot delve him to the root: his father
Was call’d Sicilius, who did join his honour
Against the Romans with Cassibelan,
But had his titles by Tenantius whom
He served with glory and admired success,
So gain’d the sur-addition Leonatus;
And had, besides this gentleman in question,
Two other sons, who in the wars o’ the time
Died with their swords in hand; for which
their father,
Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow
That he quit being, and his gentle lady,
Big of this gentleman our theme, deceased
As he was born. The king he takes the babe
To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,
Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber,
Puts to him all the learnings that his time
Could make him the receiver of; which he took,
As we do air, fast as ’twas minister’d,
And in’s spring became a harvest, lived in court–
Which rare it is to do–most praised, most loved,
A sample to the youngest, to the more mature
A glass that feated them, and to the graver
A child that guided dotards; to his mistress,
For whom he now is banish’d, her own price
Proclaims how she esteem’d him and his virtue;
By her election may be truly read
What kind of man he is.
Second Gentleman

I honour him
Even out of your report. But, pray you, tell me,
Is she sole child to the king?
First Gentleman

His only child.
He had two sons: if this be worth your hearing,
Mark it: the eldest of them at three years old,
I’ the swathing-clothes the other, from their nursery
Were stol’n, and to this hour no guess in knowledge
Which way they went.
Second Gentleman

How long is this ago?
First Gentleman

Some twenty years.
Second Gentleman

That a king’s children should be so convey’d,
So slackly guarded, and the search so slow,
That could not trace them!
First Gentleman

Howsoe’er ’tis strange,
Or that the negligence may well be laugh’d at,
Yet is it true, sir.
Second Gentleman

I do well believe you.
First Gentleman

We must forbear: here comes the gentleman,
The queen, and princess.
Exeunt
Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and IMOGEN
QUEEN

No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter,
After the slander of most stepmothers,
Evil-eyed unto you: you’re my prisoner, but
Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win the offended king,
I will be known your advocate: marry, yet
The fire of rage is in him, and ’twere good
You lean’d unto his sentence with what patience
Your wisdom may inform you.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Please your highness,
I will from hence to-day.
QUEEN

You know the peril.
I’ll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
The pangs of barr’d affections, though the king
Hath charged you should not speak together.
Exit
IMOGEN

O
Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant
Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,
I something fear my father’s wrath; but nothing–
Always reserved my holy duty–what
His rage can do on me: you must be gone;
And I shall here abide the hourly shot
Of angry eyes, not comforted to live,
But that there is this jewel in the world
That I may see again.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

My queen! my mistress!
O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause
To be suspected of more tenderness
Than doth become a man. I will remain
The loyal’st husband that did e’er plight troth:
My residence in Rome at one Philario’s,
Who to my father was a friend, to me
Known but by letter: thither write, my queen,
And with mine eyes I’ll drink the words you send,
Though ink be made of gall.
Re-enter QUEEN
QUEEN

Be brief, I pray you:
If the king come, I shall incur I know not
How much of his displeasure.
Aside
Yet I’ll move him
To walk this way: I never do him wrong,
But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
Pays dear for my offences.
Exit
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Should we be taking leave
As long a term as yet we have to live,
The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!
IMOGEN

Nay, stay a little:
Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
Such parting were too petty. Look here, love;
This diamond was my mother’s: take it, heart;
But keep it till you woo another wife,
When Imogen is dead.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

How, how! another?
You gentle gods, give me but this I have,
And sear up my embracements from a next
With bonds of death!
Putting on the ring
Remain, remain thou here
While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,
As I my poor self did exchange for you,
To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
I still win of you: for my sake wear this;
It is a manacle of love; I’ll place it
Upon this fairest prisoner.
Putting a bracelet upon her arm
IMOGEN

O the gods!
When shall we see again?
Enter CYMBELINE and Lords
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Alack, the king!
CYMBELINE

Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight!
If after this command thou fraught the court
With thy unworthiness, thou diest: away!
Thou’rt poison to my blood.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

The gods protect you!
And bless the good remainders of the court! I am gone.
Exit
IMOGEN

There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
CYMBELINE

O disloyal thing,
That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap’st
A year’s age on me.
IMOGEN

I beseech you, sir,
Harm not yourself with your vexation
I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare
Subdues all pangs, all fears.
CYMBELINE

Past grace? obedience?
IMOGEN

Past hope, and in despair; that way, past grace.
CYMBELINE

That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!
IMOGEN

O blest, that I might not! I chose an eagle,
And did avoid a puttock.
CYMBELINE

Thou took’st a beggar; wouldst have made my throne
A seat for baseness.
IMOGEN

No; I rather added
A lustre to it.
CYMBELINE

O thou vile one!
IMOGEN

Sir,
It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus:
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
A man worth any woman, overbuys me
Almost the sum he pays.
CYMBELINE

What, art thou mad?
IMOGEN

Almost, sir: heaven restore me! Would I were
A neat-herd’s daughter, and my Leonatus
Our neighbour shepherd’s son!
CYMBELINE

Thou foolish thing!
Re-enter QUEEN
They were again together: you have done
Not after our command. Away with her,
And pen her up.
QUEEN

Beseech your patience. Peace,
Dear lady daughter, peace! Sweet sovereign,
Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort
Out of your best advice.
CYMBELINE

Nay, let her languish
A drop of blood a day; and, being aged,
Die of this folly!
Exeunt CYMBELINE and Lords
QUEEN

Fie! you must give way.
Enter PISANIO
Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?
PISANIO

My lord your son drew on my master.
QUEEN

Ha!
No harm, I trust, is done?
PISANIO

There might have been,
But that my master rather play’d than fought
And had no help of anger: they were parted
By gentlemen at hand.
QUEEN

I am very glad on’t.
IMOGEN

Your son’s my father’s friend; he takes his part.
To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!
I would they were in Afric both together;
Myself by with a needle, that I might prick
The goer-back. Why came you from your master?
PISANIO

On his command: he would not suffer me
To bring him to the haven; left these notes
Of what commands I should be subject to,
When ‘t pleased you to employ me.
QUEEN

This hath been
Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour
He will remain so.
PISANIO

I humbly thank your highness.
QUEEN

Pray, walk awhile.
IMOGEN

About some half-hour hence,
I pray you, speak with me: you shall at least
Go see my lord aboard: for this time leave me.
Exeunt

SCENE II. The same. A public place.

Enter CLOTEN and two Lords
First Lord

Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the
violence of action hath made you reek as a
sacrifice: where air comes out, air comes in:
there’s none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.
CLOTEN

If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?
Second Lord

[Aside] No, ‘faith; not so much as his patience.
First Lord

Hurt him! his body’s a passable carcass, if he be
not hurt: it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt.
Second Lord

[Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o’ the
backside the town.
CLOTEN

The villain would not stand me.
Second Lord

[Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your face.
First Lord

Stand you! You have land enough of your own: but
he added to your having; gave you some ground.
Second Lord

[Aside] As many inches as you have oceans. Puppies!
CLOTEN

I would they had not come between us.
Second Lord

[Aside] So would I, till you had measured how long
a fool you were upon the ground.
CLOTEN

And that she should love this fellow and refuse me!
Second Lord

[Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she
is damned.
First Lord

Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain
go not together: she’s a good sign, but I have seen
small reflection of her wit.
Second Lord

[Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the
reflection should hurt her.
CLOTEN

Come, I’ll to my chamber. Would there had been some
hurt done!
Second Lord

[Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall
of an ass, which is no great hurt.
CLOTEN

You’ll go with us?
First Lord

I’ll attend your lordship.
CLOTEN

Nay, come, let’s go together.
Second Lord

Well, my lord.
Exeunt

SCENE III. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO
IMOGEN

I would thou grew’st unto the shores o’ the haven,
And question’dst every sail: if he should write
And not have it, ’twere a paper lost,
As offer’d mercy is. What was the last
That he spake to thee?
PISANIO

It was his queen, his queen!
IMOGEN

Then waved his handkerchief?
PISANIO

And kiss’d it, madam.
IMOGEN

Senseless Linen! happier therein than I!
And that was all?
PISANIO

No, madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of ‘s mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail’d on,
How swift his ship.
IMOGEN

Thou shouldst have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left
To after-eye him.
PISANIO

Madam, so I did.
IMOGEN

I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack’d them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle,
Nay, follow’d him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turn’d mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
When shall we hear from him?
PISANIO

Be assured, madam,
With his next vantage.
IMOGEN

I did not take my leave of him, but had
Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him
How I would think on him at certain hours
Such thoughts and such, or I could make him swear
The shes of Italy should not betray
Mine interest and his honour, or have charged him,
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then
I am in heaven for him; or ere I could
Give him that parting kiss which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father
And like the tyrannous breathing of the north
Shakes all our buds from growing.
Enter a Lady
Lady

The queen, madam,
Desires your highness’ company.
IMOGEN

Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch’d.
I will attend the queen.
PISANIO

Madam, I shall.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. Philario’s house.

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard
IACHIMO

Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was
then of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy
as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I
could then have looked on him without the help of
admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments
had been tabled by his side and I to peruse him by items.
PHILARIO

You speak of him when he was less furnished than now
he is with that which makes him both without and within.
Frenchman

I have seen him in France: we had very many there
could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.
IACHIMO

This matter of marrying his king’s daughter, wherein
he must be weighed rather by her value than his own,
words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter.
Frenchman

And then his banishment.
IACHIMO

Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this
lamentable divorce under her colours are wonderfully
to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment,
which else an easy battery might lay flat, for
taking a beggar without less quality. But how comes
it he is to sojourn with you? How creeps
acquaintance?
PHILARIO

His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I
have been often bound for no less than my life.
Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertained
amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your
knowing, to a stranger of his quality.
Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS
I beseech you all, be better known to this
gentleman; whom I commend to you as a noble friend
of mine: how worthy he is I will leave to appear
hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
Frenchman

Sir, we have known together in Orleans.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies,
which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still.
Frenchman

Sir, you o’er-rate my poor kindness: I was glad I
did atone my countryman and you; it had been pity
you should have been put together with so mortal a
purpose as then each bore, upon importance of so
slight and trivial a nature.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

By your pardon, sir, I was then a young traveller;
rather shunned to go even with what I heard than in
my every action to be guided by others’ experiences:
but upon my mended judgment–if I offend not to say
it is mended–my quarrel was not altogether slight.
Frenchman

‘Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords,
and by such two that would by all likelihood have
confounded one the other, or have fallen both.
IACHIMO

Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?
Frenchman

Safely, I think: ’twas a contention in public,
which may, without contradiction, suffer the report.
It was much like an argument that fell out last
night, where each of us fell in praise of our
country mistresses; this gentleman at that time
vouching–and upon warrant of bloody
affirmation–his to be more fair, virtuous, wise,
chaste, constant-qualified and less attemptable
than any the rarest of our ladies in France.
IACHIMO

That lady is not now living, or this gentleman’s
opinion by this worn out.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

She holds her virtue still and I my mind.
IACHIMO

You must not so far prefer her ‘fore ours of Italy.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Being so far provoked as I was in France, I would
abate her nothing, though I profess myself her
adorer, not her friend.
IACHIMO

As fair and as good–a kind of hand-in-hand
comparison–had been something too fair and too good
for any lady in Britain. If she went before others
I have seen, as that diamond of yours outlustres
many I have beheld. I could not but believe she
excelled many: but I have not seen the most
precious diamond that is, nor you the lady.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I praised her as I rated her: so do I my stone.
IACHIMO

What do you esteem it at?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

More than the world enjoys.
IACHIMO

Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she’s
outprized by a trifle.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

You are mistaken: the one may be sold, or given, if
there were wealth enough for the purchase, or merit
for the gift: the other is not a thing for sale,
and only the gift of the gods.
IACHIMO

Which the gods have given you?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Which, by their graces, I will keep.
IACHIMO

You may wear her in title yours: but, you know,
strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your
ring may be stolen too: so your brace of unprizable
estimations; the one is but frail and the other
casual; a cunning thief, or a that way accomplished
courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier
to convince the honour of my mistress, if, in the
holding or loss of that, you term her frail. I do
nothing doubt you have store of thieves;
notwithstanding, I fear not my ring.
PHILARIO

Let us leave here, gentlemen.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I
thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first.
IACHIMO

With five times so much conversation, I should get
ground of your fair mistress, make her go back, even
to the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

No, no.
IACHIMO

I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to
your ring; which, in my opinion, o’ervalues it
something: but I make my wager rather against your
confidence than her reputation: and, to bar your
offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any
lady in the world.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

You are a great deal abused in too bold a
persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you’re
worthy of by your attempt.
IACHIMO

What’s that?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

A repulse: though your attempt, as you call it,
deserve more; a punishment too.
PHILARIO

Gentlemen, enough of this: it came in too suddenly;
let it die as it was born, and, I pray you, be
better acquainted.
IACHIMO

Would I had put my estate and my neighbour’s on the
approbation of what I have spoke!
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

What lady would you choose to assail?
IACHIMO

Yours; whom in constancy you think stands so safe.
I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring,
that, commend me to the court where your lady is,
with no more advantage than the opportunity of a
second conference, and I will bring from thence
that honour of hers which you imagine so reserved.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring
I hold dear as my finger; ’tis part of it.
IACHIMO

You are afraid, and therein the wiser. If you buy
ladies’ flesh at a million a dram, you cannot
preserve it from tainting: but I see you have some
religion in you, that you fear.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a
graver purpose, I hope.
IACHIMO

I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo
what’s spoken, I swear.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Will you? I shall but lend my diamond till your
return: let there be covenants drawn between’s: my
mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your
unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here’s my ring.
PHILARIO

I will have it no lay.
IACHIMO

By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no
sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest
bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats
are yours; so is your diamond too: if I come off,
and leave her in such honour as you have trust in,
she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are
yours: provided I have your commendation for my more
free entertainment.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I embrace these conditions; let us have articles
betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if
you make your voyage upon her and give me directly
to understand you have prevailed, I am no further
your enemy; she is not worth our debate: if she
remain unseduced, you not making it appear
otherwise, for your ill opinion and the assault you
have made to her chastity you shall answer me with
your sword.
IACHIMO

Your hand; a covenant: we will have these things set
down by lawful counsel, and straight away for
Britain, lest the bargain should catch cold and
starve: I will fetch my gold and have our two
wagers recorded.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Agreed.
Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and IACHIMO
Frenchman

Will this hold, think you?
PHILARIO

Signior Iachimo will not from it.
Pray, let us follow ’em.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Britain. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter QUEEN, Ladies, and CORNELIUS
QUEEN

Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers;
Make haste: who has the note of them?
First Lady

I, madam.
QUEEN

Dispatch.
Exeunt Ladies
Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?
CORNELIUS

Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam:
Presenting a small box
But I beseech your grace, without offence,–
My conscience bids me ask–wherefore you have
Commanded of me those most poisonous compounds,
Which are the movers of a languishing death;
But though slow, deadly?
QUEEN

I wonder, doctor,
Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,–
Unless thou think’st me devilish–is’t not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions? I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
To try the vigour of them and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.
CORNELIUS

Your highness
Shall from this practise but make hard your heart:
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.
QUEEN

O, content thee.
Enter PISANIO
Aside
Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
Will I first work: he’s for his master,
An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
Take your own way.
CORNELIUS

[Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
But you shall do no harm.
QUEEN

[To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.
CORNELIUS

[Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile;
Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on
cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher: but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
With a most false effect; and I the truer,
So to be false with her.
QUEEN

No further service, doctor,
Until I send for thee.
CORNELIUS

I humbly take my leave.
Exit
QUEEN

Weeps she still, say’st thou? Dost thou think in time
She will not quench and let instructions enter
Where folly now possesses? Do thou work:
When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then
As great as is thy master, greater, for
His fortunes all lie speechless and his name
Is at last gasp: return he cannot, nor
Continue where he is: to shift his being
Is to exchange one misery with another,
And every day that comes comes to decay
A day’s work in him. What shalt thou expect,
To be depender on a thing that leans,
Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends,
So much as but to prop him?
The QUEEN drops the box: PISANIO takes it up
Thou takest up
Thou know’st not what; but take it for thy labour:
It is a thing I made, which hath the king
Five times redeem’d from death: I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it;
It is an earnest of a further good
That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
The case stands with her; do’t as from thyself.
Think what a chance thou changest on, but think
Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son,
Who shall take notice of thee: I’ll move the king
To any shape of thy preferment such
As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
That set thee on to this desert, am bound
To load thy merit richly. Call my women:
Think on my words.
Exit PISANIO
A sly and constant knave,
Not to be shaked; the agent for his master
And the remembrancer of her to hold
The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after,
Except she bend her humour, shall be assured
To taste of too.
Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies
So, so: well done, well done:
The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
Think on my words.
Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies
PISANIO

And shall do:
But when to my good lord I prove untrue,
I’ll choke myself: there’s all I’ll do for you.
Exit

SCENE VI. The same. Another room in the palace.

Enter IMOGEN
IMOGEN

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

Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome,
Comes from my lord with letters.
IACHIMO

Change you, madam?
The worthy Leonatus is in safety
And greets your highness dearly.
Presents a letter
IMOGEN

Thanks, good sir:
You’re kindly welcome.
IACHIMO

[Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!
Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;
Rather directly fly.
IMOGEN

[Reads] ‘He is one of the noblest note, to whose
kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon
him accordingly, as you value your trust–
LEONATUS.’
So far I read aloud:
But even the very middle of my heart
Is warm’d by the rest, and takes it thankfully.
You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I
Have words to bid you, and shall find it so
In all that I can do.
IACHIMO

Thanks, fairest lady.
What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish ‘twixt
The fiery orbs above and the twinn’d stones
Upon the number’d beach? and can we not
Partition make with spectacles so precious
‘Twixt fair and foul?
IMOGEN

What makes your admiration?
IACHIMO

It cannot be i’ the eye, for apes and monkeys
‘Twixt two such shes would chatter this way and
Contemn with mows the other; nor i’ the judgment,
For idiots in this case of favour would
Be wisely definite; nor i’ the appetite;
Sluttery to such neat excellence opposed
Should make desire vomit emptiness,
Not so allured to feed.
IMOGEN

What is the matter, trow?
IACHIMO

The cloyed will,
That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
Both fill’d and running, ravening first the lamb
Longs after for the garbage.
IMOGEN

What, dear sir,
Thus raps you? Are you well?
IACHIMO

Thanks, madam; well.
To PISANIO
Beseech you, sir, desire
My man’s abode where I did leave him: he
Is strange and peevish.
PISANIO

I was going, sir,
To give him welcome.
Exit
IMOGEN

Continues well my lord? His health, beseech you?
IACHIMO

Well, madam.
IMOGEN

Is he disposed to mirth? I hope he is.
IACHIMO

Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there
So merry and so gamesome: he is call’d
The Briton reveller.
IMOGEN

When he was here,
He did incline to sadness, and oft-times
Not knowing why.
IACHIMO

I never saw him sad.
There is a Frenchman his companion, one
An eminent monsieur, that, it seems, much loves
A Gallian girl at home; he furnaces
The thick sighs from him, whiles the jolly Briton–
Your lord, I mean–laughs from’s free lungs, cries ‘O,
Can my sides hold, to think that man, who knows
By history, report, or his own proof,
What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose
But must be, will his free hours languish for
Assured bondage?’
IMOGEN

Will my lord say so?
IACHIMO

Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter:
It is a recreation to be by
And hear him mock the Frenchman. But, heavens know,
Some men are much to blame.
IMOGEN

Not he, I hope.
IACHIMO

Not he: but yet heaven’s bounty towards him might
Be used more thankfully. In himself, ’tis much;
In you, which I account his beyond all talents,
Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound
To pity too.
IMOGEN

What do you pity, sir?
IACHIMO

Two creatures heartily.
IMOGEN

Am I one, sir?
You look on me: what wreck discern you in me
Deserves your pity?
IACHIMO

Lamentable! What,
To hide me from the radiant sun and solace
I’ the dungeon by a snuff?
IMOGEN

I pray you, sir,
Deliver with more openness your answers
To my demands. Why do you pity me?
IACHIMO

That others do–
I was about to say–enjoy your–But
It is an office of the gods to venge it,
Not mine to speak on ‘t.
IMOGEN

You do seem to know
Something of me, or what concerns me: pray you,–
Since doubling things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do; for certainties
Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born–discover to me
What both you spur and stop.
IACHIMO

Had I this cheek
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch, would force the feeler’s soul
To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here; should I, damn’d then,
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood–falsehood, as
With labour; then by-peeping in an eye
Base and unlustrous as the smoky light
That’s fed with stinking tallow; it were fit
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.
IMOGEN

My lord, I fear,
Has forgot Britain.
IACHIMO

And himself. Not I,
Inclined to this intelligence, pronounce
The beggary of his change; but ’tis your graces
That from pay mutest conscience to my tongue
Charms this report out.
IMOGEN

Let me hear no more.
IACHIMO

O dearest soul! your cause doth strike my heart
With pity, that doth make me sick. A lady
So fair, and fasten’d to an empery,
Would make the great’st king double,–to be partner’d
With tomboys hired with that self-exhibition
Which your own coffers yield! with diseased ventures
That play with all infirmities for gold
Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil’d stuff
As well might poison poison! Be revenged;
Or she that bore you was no queen, and you
Recoil from your great stock.
IMOGEN

Revenged!
How should I be revenged? If this be true,–
As I have such a heart that both mine ears
Must not in haste abuse–if it be true,
How should I be revenged?
IACHIMO

Should he make me
Live, like Diana’s priest, betwixt cold sheets,
Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
More noble than that runagate to your bed,
And will continue fast to your affection,
Still close as sure.
IMOGEN

What, ho, Pisanio!
IACHIMO

Let me my service tender on your lips.
IMOGEN

Away! I do condemn mine ears that have
So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,
Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not
For such an end thou seek’st,–as base as strange.
Thou wrong’st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report as thou from honour, and
Solicit’st here a lady that disdains
Thee and the devil alike. What ho, Pisanio!
The king my father shall be made acquainted
Of thy assault: if he shall think it fit,
A saucy stranger in his court to mart
As in a Romish stew and to expound
His beastly mind to us, he hath a court
He little cares for and a daughter who
He not respects at all. What, ho, Pisanio!
IACHIMO

O happy Leonatus! I may say
The credit that thy lady hath of thee
Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness
Her assured credit. Blessed live you long!
A lady to the worthiest sir that ever
Country call’d his! and you his mistress, only
For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.
I have spoke this, to know if your affiance
Were deeply rooted; and shall make your lord,
That which he is, new o’er: and he is one
The truest manner’d; such a holy witch
That he enchants societies into him;
Half all men’s hearts are his.
IMOGEN

You make amends.
IACHIMO

He sits ‘mongst men like a descended god:
He hath a kind of honour sets him off,
More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,
Most mighty princess, that I have adventured
To try your taking a false report; which hath
Honour’d with confirmation your great judgment
In the election of a sir so rare,
Which you know cannot err: the love I bear him
Made me to fan you thus, but the gods made you,
Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray, your pardon.
IMOGEN

All’s well, sir: take my power i’ the court
for yours.
IACHIMO

My humble thanks. I had almost forgot
To entreat your grace but in a small request,
And yet of moment to, for it concerns
Your lord; myself and other noble friends,
Are partners in the business.
IMOGEN

Pray, what is’t?
IACHIMO

Some dozen Romans of us and your lord–
The best feather of our wing–have mingled sums
To buy a present for the emperor
Which I, the factor for the rest, have done
In France: ’tis plate of rare device, and jewels
Of rich and exquisite form; their values great;
And I am something curious, being strange,
To have them in safe stowage: may it please you
To take them in protection?
IMOGEN

Willingly;
And pawn mine honour for their safety: since
My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them
In my bedchamber.
IACHIMO

They are in a trunk,
Attended by my men: I will make bold
To send them to you, only for this night;
I must aboard to-morrow.
IMOGEN

O, no, no.
IACHIMO

Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word
By lengthening my return. From Gallia
I cross’d the seas on purpose and on promise
To see your grace.
IMOGEN

I thank you for your pains:
But not away to-morrow!
IACHIMO

O, I must, madam:
Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please
To greet your lord with writing, do’t to-night:
I have outstood my time; which is material
To the tender of our present.
IMOGEN

I will write.
Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept,
And truly yielded you. You’re very welcome.
Exeunt

ACT II
SCENE I. Britain. Before Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter CLOTEN and two Lords
CLOTEN

Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the
jack, upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a
hundred pound on’t: and then a whoreson jackanapes
must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine
oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure.
First Lord

What got he by that? You have broke his pate with
your bowl.
Second Lord

[Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it,
it would have run all out.
CLOTEN

When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for
any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha?
Second Lord

No my lord;
Aside
nor crop the ears of them.
CLOTEN

Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction?
Would he had been one of my rank!
Second Lord

[Aside] To have smelt like a fool.
CLOTEN

I am not vexed more at any thing in the earth: a
pox on’t! I had rather not be so noble as I am;
they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my
mother: every Jack-slave hath his bellyful of
fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that
nobody can match.
Second Lord

[Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow,
cock, with your comb on.
CLOTEN

Sayest thou?
Second Lord

It is not fit your lordship should undertake every
companion that you give offence to.
CLOTEN

No, I know that: but it is fit I should commit
offence to my inferiors.
Second Lord

Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.
CLOTEN

Why, so I say.
First Lord

Did you hear of a stranger that’s come to court to-night?
CLOTEN

A stranger, and I not know on’t!
Second Lord

[Aside] He’s a strange fellow himself, and knows it
not.
First Lord

There’s an Italian come; and, ’tis thought, one of
Leonatus’ friends.
CLOTEN

Leonatus! a banished rascal; and he’s another,
whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger?
First Lord

One of your lordship’s pages.
CLOTEN

Is it fit I went to look upon him? is there no
derogation in’t?
Second Lord

You cannot derogate, my lord.
CLOTEN

Not easily, I think.
Second Lord

[Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your
issues, being foolish, do not derogate.
CLOTEN

Come, I’ll go see this Italian: what I have lost
to-day at bowls I’ll win to-night of him. Come, go.
Second Lord

I’ll attend your lordship.
Exeunt CLOTEN and First Lord
That such a crafty devil as is his mother
Should yield the world this ass! a woman that
Bears all down with her brain; and this her son
Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,
And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,
Thou divine Imogen, what thou endurest,
Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern’d,
A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer
More hateful than the foul expulsion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act
Of the divorce he’ld make! The heavens hold firm
The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshaked
That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand,
To enjoy thy banish’d lord and this great land!
Exit

SCENE II. Imogen’s bedchamber in Cymbeline’s palace:

a trunk in one corner of it.
IMOGEN in bed, reading; a Lady attending
IMOGEN

Who’s there? my woman Helen?
Lady

Please you, madam
IMOGEN

What hour is it?
Lady

Almost midnight, madam.
IMOGEN

I have read three hours then: mine eyes are weak:
Fold down the leaf where I have left: to bed:
Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o’ the clock,
I prithee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly
Exit Lady
To your protection I commend me, gods.
From fairies and the tempters of the night
Guard me, beseech ye.
Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk
IACHIMO

The crickets sing, and man’s o’er-labour’d sense
Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken’d
The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
How bravely thou becomest thy bed, fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon’d,
How dearly they do’t! ‘Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o’ the taper
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids,
To see the enclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows, white and azure laced
With blue of heaven’s own tinct. But my design,
To note the chamber: I will write all down:
Such and such pictures; there the window; such
The adornment of her bed; the arras; figures,
Why, such and such; and the contents o’ the story.
Ah, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner moveables
Would testify, to enrich mine inventory.
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off:
Taking off her bracelet
As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
‘Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ the bottom of a cowslip: here’s a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have pick’d the lock and ta’en
The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?
Why should I write this down, that’s riveted,
Screw’d to my memory? She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus; here the leaf’s turn’d down
Where Philomel gave up. I have enough:
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bare the raven’s eye! I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.
Clock strikes
One, two, three: time, time!
Goes into the trunk. The scene closes
Scene III

An ante-chamber adjoining Imogen’s apartments.
Enter CLOTEN and Lords
First Lord

Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the
most coldest that ever turned up ace.
CLOTEN

It would make any man cold to lose.
First Lord

But not every man patient after the noble temper of
your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win.
CLOTEN

Winning will put any man into courage. If I could
get this foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough.
It’s almost morning, is’t not?
First Lord

Day, my lord.
CLOTEN

I would this music would come: I am advised to give
her music o’ mornings; they say it will penetrate.
Enter Musicians
Come on; tune: if you can penetrate her with your
fingering, so; we’ll try with tongue too: if none
will do, let her remain; but I’ll never give o’er.
First, a very excellent good-conceited thing;
after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich
words to it: and then let her consider.
SONG
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise.
CLOTEN

So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will
consider your music the better: if it do not, it is
a vice in her ears, which horse-hairs and
calves’-guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to
boot, can never amend.
Exeunt Musicians
Second Lord

Here comes the king.
CLOTEN

I am glad I was up so late; for that’s the reason I
was up so early: he cannot choose but take this
service I have done fatherly.
Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN
Good morrow to your majesty and to my gracious mother.
CYMBELINE

Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?
Will she not forth?
CLOTEN

I have assailed her with music, but she vouchsafes no notice.
CYMBELINE

The exile of her minion is too new;
She hath not yet forgot him: some more time
Must wear the print of his remembrance out,
And then she’s yours.
QUEEN

You are most bound to the king,
Who lets go by no vantages that may
Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself
To orderly soliciting, and be friended
With aptness of the season; make denials
Increase your services; so seem as if
You were inspired to do those duties which
You tender to her; that you in all obey her,
Save when command to your dismission tends,
And therein you are senseless.
CLOTEN

Senseless! not so.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger

So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;
The one is Caius Lucius.
CYMBELINE

A worthy fellow,
Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;
But that’s no fault of his: we must receive him
According to the honour of his sender;
And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,
We must extend our notice. Our dear son,
When you have given good morning to your mistress,
Attend the queen and us; we shall have need
To employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.
Exeunt all but CLOTEN
CLOTEN

If she be up, I’ll speak with her; if not,
Let her lie still and dream.
Knocks
By your leave, ho!
I Know her women are about her: what
If I do line one of their hands? ‘Tis gold
Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and makes
Diana’s rangers false themselves, yield up
Their deer to the stand o’ the stealer; and ’tis gold
Which makes the true man kill’d and saves the thief;
Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man: what
Can it not do and undo? I will make
One of her women lawyer to me, for
I yet not understand the case myself.
Knocks
By your leave.
Enter a Lady
Lady

Who’s there that knocks?
CLOTEN

A gentleman.
Lady

No more?
CLOTEN

Yes, and a gentlewoman’s son.
Lady

That’s more
Than some, whose tailors are as dear as yours,
Can justly boast of. What’s your lordship’s pleasure?
CLOTEN

Your lady’s person: is she ready?
Lady

Ay,
To keep her chamber.
CLOTEN

There is gold for you;
Sell me your good report.
Lady

How! my good name? or to report of you
What I shall think is good?–The princess!
Enter IMOGEN
CLOTEN

Good morrow, fairest: sister, your sweet hand.
Exit Lady
IMOGEN

Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains
For purchasing but trouble; the thanks I give
Is telling you that I am poor of thanks
And scarce can spare them.
CLOTEN

Still, I swear I love you.
IMOGEN

If you but said so, ’twere as deep with me:
If you swear still, your recompense is still
That I regard it not.
CLOTEN

This is no answer.
IMOGEN

But that you shall not say I yield being silent,
I would not speak. I pray you, spare me: ‘faith,
I shall unfold equal discourtesy
To your best kindness: one of your great knowing
Should learn, being taught, forbearance.
CLOTEN

To leave you in your madness, ’twere my sin:
I will not.
IMOGEN

Fools are not mad folks.
CLOTEN

Do you call me fool?
IMOGEN

As I am mad, I do:
If you’ll be patient, I’ll no more be mad;
That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,
You put me to forget a lady’s manners,
By being so verbal: and learn now, for all,
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
By the very truth of it, I care not for you,
And am so near the lack of charity–
To accuse myself–I hate you; which I had rather
You felt than make’t my boast.
CLOTEN

You sin against
Obedience, which you owe your father. For
The contract you pretend with that base wretch,
One bred of alms and foster’d with cold dishes,
With scraps o’ the court, it is no contract, none:
And though it be allow’d in meaner parties–
Yet who than he more mean?–to knit their souls,
On whom there is no more dependency
But brats and beggary, in self-figured knot;
Yet you are curb’d from that enlargement by
The consequence o’ the crown, and must not soil
The precious note of it with a base slave.
A hilding for a livery, a squire’s cloth,
A pantler, not so eminent.
IMOGEN

Profane fellow
Wert thou the son of Jupiter and no more
But what thou art besides, thou wert too base
To be his groom: thou wert dignified enough,
Even to the point of envy, if ’twere made
Comparative for your virtues, to be styled
The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated
For being preferred so well.
CLOTEN

The south-fog rot him!
IMOGEN

He never can meet more mischance than come
To be but named of thee. His meanest garment,
That ever hath but clipp’d his body, is dearer
In my respect than all the hairs above thee,
Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!
Enter PISANIO
CLOTEN

‘His garment!’ Now the devil–
IMOGEN

To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently–
CLOTEN

‘His garment!’
IMOGEN

I am sprited with a fool.
Frighted, and anger’d worse: go bid my woman
Search for a jewel that too casually
Hath left mine arm: it was thy master’s: ‘shrew me,
If I would lose it for a revenue
Of any king’s in Europe. I do think
I saw’t this morning: confident I am
Last night ’twas on mine arm; I kiss’d it:
I hope it be not gone to tell my lord
That I kiss aught but he.
PISANIO

‘Twill not be lost.
IMOGEN

I hope so: go and search.
Exit PISANIO
CLOTEN

You have abused me:
‘His meanest garment!’
IMOGEN

Ay, I said so, sir:
If you will make’t an action, call witness to’t.
CLOTEN

I will inform your father.
IMOGEN

Your mother too:
She’s my good lady, and will conceive, I hope,
But the worst of me. So, I leave you, sir,
To the worst of discontent.
Exit
CLOTEN

I’ll be revenged:
‘His meanest garment!’ Well.
Exit
CYMBELINE

SCENE IV. Rome. Philario’s house.

Enter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Fear it not, sir: I would I were so sure
To win the king as I am bold her honour
Will remain hers.
PHILARIO

What means do you make to him?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Not any, but abide the change of time,
Quake in the present winter’s state and wish
That warmer days would come: in these sear’d hopes,
I barely gratify your love; they failing,
I must die much your debtor.
PHILARIO

Your very goodness and your company
O’erpays all I can do. By this, your king
Hath heard of great Augustus: Caius Lucius
Will do’s commission throughly: and I think
He’ll grant the tribute, send the arrearages,
Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance
Is yet fresh in their grief.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I do believe,
Statist though I am none, nor like to be,
That this will prove a war; and you shall hear
The legions now in Gallia sooner landed
In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings
Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen
Are men more order’d than when Julius Caesar
Smiled at their lack of skill, but found
their courage
Worthy his frowning at: their discipline,
Now mingled with their courages, will make known
To their approvers they are people such
That mend upon the world.
Enter IACHIMO
PHILARIO

See! Iachimo!
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

The swiftest harts have posted you by land;
And winds of all the comers kiss’d your sails,
To make your vessel nimble.
PHILARIO

Welcome, sir.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I hope the briefness of your answer made
The speediness of your return.
IACHIMO

Your lady
Is one of the fairest that I have look’d upon.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

And therewithal the best; or let her beauty
Look through a casement to allure false hearts
And be false with them.
IACHIMO

Here are letters for you.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Their tenor good, I trust.
IACHIMO

‘Tis very like.
PHILARIO

Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court
When you were there?
IACHIMO

He was expected then,
But not approach’d.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

All is well yet.
Sparkles this stone as it was wont? or is’t not
Too dull for your good wearing?
IACHIMO

If I had lost it,
I should have lost the worth of it in gold.
I’ll make a journey twice as far, to enjoy
A second night of such sweet shortness which
Was mine in Britain, for the ring is won.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

The stone’s too hard to come by.
IACHIMO

Not a whit,
Your lady being so easy.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Make not, sir,
Your loss your sport: I hope you know that we
Must not continue friends.
IACHIMO

Good sir, we must,
If you keep covenant. Had I not brought
The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant
We were to question further: but I now
Profess myself the winner of her honour,
Together with your ring; and not the wronger
Of her or you, having proceeded but
By both your wills.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

If you can make’t apparent
That you have tasted her in bed, my hand
And ring is yours; if not, the foul opinion
You had of her pure honour gains or loses
Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both
To who shall find them.
IACHIMO

Sir, my circumstances,
Being so near the truth as I will make them,
Must first induce you to believe: whose strength
I will confirm with oath; which, I doubt not,
You’ll give me leave to spare, when you shall find
You need it not.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Proceed.
IACHIMO

First, her bedchamber,–
Where, I confess, I slept not, but profess
Had that was well worth watching–it was hang’d
With tapesty of silk and silver; the story
Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman,
And Cydnus swell’d above the banks, or for
The press of boats or pride: a piece of work
So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
In workmanship and value; which I wonder’d
Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,
Since the true life on’t was–
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

This is true;
And this you might have heard of here, by me,
Or by some other.
IACHIMO

More particulars
Must justify my knowledge.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

So they must,
Or do your honour injury.
IACHIMO

The chimney
Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece
Chaste Dian bathing: never saw I figures
So likely to report themselves: the cutter
Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,
Motion and breath left out.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

This is a thing
Which you might from relation likewise reap,
Being, as it is, much spoke of.
IACHIMO

The roof o’ the chamber
With golden cherubins is fretted: her andirons–
I had forgot them–were two winking Cupids
Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
Depending on their brands.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

This is her honour!
Let it be granted you have seen all this–and praise
Be given to your remembrance–the description
Of what is in her chamber nothing saves
The wager you have laid.
IACHIMO

Then, if you can,
Showing the bracelet
Be pale: I beg but leave to air this jewel; see!
And now ’tis up again: it must be married
To that your diamond; I’ll keep them.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Jove!
Once more let me behold it: is it that
Which I left with her?
IACHIMO

Sir–I thank her–that:
She stripp’d it from her arm; I see her yet;
Her pretty action did outsell her gift,
And yet enrich’d it too: she gave it me, and said
She prized it once.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

May be she pluck’d it off
To send it me.
IACHIMO

She writes so to you, doth she?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

O, no, no, no! ’tis true. Here, take this too;
Gives the ring
It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour
Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance; love,
Where there’s another man: the vows of women
Of no more bondage be, to where they are made,
Than they are to their virtues; which is nothing.
O, above measure false!
PHILARIO

Have patience, sir,
And take your ring again; ’tis not yet won:
It may be probable she lost it; or
Who knows if one of her women, being corrupted,
Hath stol’n it from her?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Very true;
And so, I hope, he came by’t. Back my ring:
Render to me some corporal sign about her,
More evident than this; for this was stolen.
IACHIMO

By Jupiter, I had it from her arm.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears.
‘Tis true:–nay, keep the ring–’tis true: I am sure
She would not lose it: her attendants are
All sworn and honourable:–they induced to steal it!
And by a stranger!–No, he hath enjoyed her:
The cognizance of her incontinency
Is this: she hath bought the name of whore
thus dearly.
There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell
Divide themselves between you!
PHILARIO

Sir, be patient:
This is not strong enough to be believed
Of one persuaded well of–
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Never talk on’t;
She hath been colted by him.
IACHIMO

If you seek
For further satisfying, under her breast–
Worthy the pressing–lies a mole, right proud
Of that most delicate lodging: by my life,
I kiss’d it; and it gave me present hunger
To feed again, though full. You do remember
This stain upon her?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Ay, and it doth confirm
Another stain, as big as hell can hold,
Were there no more but it.
IACHIMO

Will you hear more?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Spare your arithmetic: never count the turns;
Once, and a million!
IACHIMO

I’ll be sworn–
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

No swearing.
If you will swear you have not done’t, you lie;
And I will kill thee, if thou dost deny
Thou’st made me cuckold.
IACHIMO

I’ll deny nothing.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal!
I will go there and do’t, i’ the court, before
Her father. I’ll do something–
Exit
PHILARIO

Quite besides
The government of patience! You have won:
Let’s follow him, and pervert the present wrath
He hath against himself.
IACHIMO

With an my heart.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Another room in Philario’s house.

Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

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

ACT III
SCENE I. Britain. A hall in Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and Lords at one door, and at another, CAIUS LUCIUS and Attendants
CYMBELINE

Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?
CAIUS LUCIUS

When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet
Lives in men’s eyes and will to ears and tongues
Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain
And conquer’d it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,–
Famous in Caesar’s praises, no whit less
Than in his feats deserving it–for him
And his succession granted Rome a tribute,
Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately
Is left untender’d.
QUEEN

And, to kill the marvel,
Shall be so ever.
CLOTEN

There be many Caesars,
Ere such another Julius. Britain is
A world by itself; and we will nothing pay
For wearing our own noses.
QUEEN

That opportunity
Which then they had to take from ‘s, to resume
We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,
The kings your ancestors, together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
With sands that will not bear your enemies’ boats,
But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest
Caesar made here; but made not here his brag
Of ‘Came’ and ‘saw’ and ‘overcame: ‘ with shame–
That first that ever touch’d him–he was carried
From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping–
Poor ignorant baubles!– upon our terrible seas,
Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack’d
As easily ‘gainst our rocks: for joy whereof
The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point–
O giglot fortune!–to master Caesar’s sword,
Made Lud’s town with rejoicing fires bright
And Britons strut with courage.
CLOTEN

Come, there’s no more tribute to be paid: our
kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and,
as I said, there is no moe such Caesars: other of
them may have crook’d noses, but to owe such
straight arms, none.
CYMBELINE

Son, let your mother end.
CLOTEN

We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as
Cassibelan: I do not say I am one; but I have a
hand. Why tribute? why should we pay tribute? If
Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or
put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute
for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.
CYMBELINE

You must know,
Till the injurious Romans did extort
This tribute from us, we were free:
Caesar’s ambition,
Which swell’d so much that it did almost stretch
The sides o’ the world, against all colour here
Did put the yoke upon ‘s; which to shake off
Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
Ourselves to be.
CLOTEN

Lords

We do.
CYMBELINE

Say, then, to Caesar,
Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which
Ordain’d our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar
Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise
Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
Though Rome be therefore angry: Mulmutius made our laws,
Who was the first of Britain which did put
His brows within a golden crown and call’d
Himself a king.
CAIUS LUCIUS

I am sorry, Cymbeline,
That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar–
Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than
Thyself domestic officers–thine enemy:
Receive it from me, then: war and confusion
In Caesar’s name pronounce I ‘gainst thee: look
For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,
I thank thee for myself.
CYMBELINE

Thou art welcome, Caius.
Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent
Much under him; of him I gather’d honour;
Which he to seek of me again, perforce,
Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect
That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for
Their liberties are now in arms; a precedent
Which not to read would show the Britons cold:
So Caesar shall not find them.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Let proof speak.
CLOTEN

His majesty bids you welcome. Make
pastime with us a day or two, or longer: if
you seek us afterwards in other terms, you
shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you
beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in
the adventure, our crows shall fare the better
for you; and there’s an end.
CAIUS LUCIUS

So, sir.
CYMBELINE

I know your master’s pleasure and he mine:
All the remain is ‘Welcome!’
Exeunt

SCENE II. Another room in the palace.

Enter PISANIO, with a letter
PISANIO

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

How now, Pisanio!
PISANIO

Madam, here is a letter from my lord.
IMOGEN

Who? thy lord? that is my lord, Leonatus!
O, learn’d indeed were that astronomer
That knew the stars as I his characters;
He’ld lay the future open. You good gods,
Let what is here contain’d relish of love,
Of my lord’s health, of his content, yet not
That we two are asunder; let that grieve him:
Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them,
For it doth physic love: of his content,
All but in that! Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers
And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike:
Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods!
Reads
‘Justice, and your father’s wrath, should he take me
in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as
you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew me
with your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria,
at Milford-Haven: what your own love will out of
this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all
happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and your,
increasing in love,
LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.’
O, for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford-Haven: read, and tell me
How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,–
Who long’st, like me, to see thy lord; who long’st,–
let me bate,-but not like me–yet long’st,
But in a fainter kind:–O, not like me;
For mine’s beyond beyond–say, and speak thick;
Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
To the smothering of the sense–how far it is
To this same blessed Milford: and by the way
Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
To inherit such a haven: but first of all,
How we may steal from hence, and for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence-going
And our return, to excuse: but first, how get hence:
Why should excuse be born or e’er begot?
We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee, speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
‘Twixt hour and hour?
PISANIO

One score ‘twixt sun and sun,
Madam, ‘s enough for you:
Aside
and too much too.
IMOGEN

Why, one that rode to’s execution, man,
Could never go so slow: I have heard of
riding wagers,
Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
That run i’ the clock’s behalf. But this is foolery:
Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say
She’ll home to her father: and provide me presently
A riding-suit, no costlier than would fit
A franklin’s housewife.
PISANIO

Madam, you’re best consider.
IMOGEN

I see before me, man: nor here, nor here,
Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them,
That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;
Do as I bid thee: there’s no more to say,
Accessible is none but Milford way.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Wales: a mountainous country with a cave.

Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS; GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS following
BELARIUS

A goodly day not to keep house, with such
Whose roof’s as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
Instructs you how to adore the heavens and bows you
To a morning’s holy office: the gates of monarchs
Are arch’d so high that giants may jet through
And keep their impious turbans on, without
Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
We house i’ the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.
GUIDERIUS

Hail, heaven!
ARVIRAGUS

Hail, heaven!
BELARIUS

Now for our mountain sport: up to yond hill;
Your legs are young; I’ll tread these flats. Consider,
When you above perceive me like a crow,
That it is place which lessens and sets off;
And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
This service is not service, so being done,
But being so allow’d: to apprehend thus,
Draws us a profit from all things we see;
And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing’d eagle. O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a cheque,
Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him that makes ’em fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross’d: no life to ours.
GUIDERIUS

Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing’d from view o’ the nest, nor know not
What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.
ARVIRAGUS

What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
We are beastly, subtle as the fox for prey,
Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat;
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison’d bird,
And sing our bondage freely.
BELARIUS

How you speak!
Did you but know the city’s usuries
And felt them knowingly; the art o’ the court
As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery that
The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o’ the war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I’ the name of fame and honour; which dies i’
the search,
And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve by doing well; what’s worse,
Must court’sy at the censure:–O boys, this story
The world may read in me: my body’s mark’d
With Roman swords, and my report was once
First with the best of note: Cymbeline loved me,
And when a soldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: then was I as a tree
Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
A storm or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.
GUIDERIUS

Uncertain favour!
BELARIUS

My fault being nothing–as I have told you oft–
But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail’d
Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
I was confederate with the Romans: so
Follow’d my banishment, and this twenty years
This rock and these demesnes have been my world;
Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid
More pious debts to heaven than in all
The fore-end of my time. But up to the mountains!
This is not hunters’ language: he that strikes
The venison first shall be the lord o’ the feast;
To him the other two shall minister;
And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.
Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS
How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to the king;
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine; and though train’d
up thus meanly
I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
The king his father call’d Guiderius,–Jove!
When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
Into my story: say ‘Thus, mine enemy fell,
And thus I set my foot on ‘s neck;’ even then
The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
Strains his young nerves and puts himself in posture
That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
Once Arviragus, in as like a figure,
Strikes life into my speech and shows much more
His own conceiving.–Hark, the game is roused!
O Cymbeline! heaven and my conscience knows
Thou didst unjustly banish me: whereon,
At three and two years old, I stole these babes;
Thinking to bar thee of succession, as
Thou reft’st me of my lands. Euriphile,
Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for
their mother,
And every day do honour to her grave:
Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call’d,
They take for natural father. The game is up.
Exit

SCENE IV. Country near Milford-Haven.

Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN
IMOGEN

Thou told’st me, when we came from horse, the place
Was near at hand: ne’er long’d my mother so
To see me first, as I have now. Pisanio! man!
Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind,
That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh
From the inward of thee? One, but painted thus,
Would be interpreted a thing perplex’d
Beyond self-explication: put thyself
Into a havior of less fear, ere wildness
Vanquish my staider senses. What’s the matter?
Why tender’st thou that paper to me, with
A look untender? If’t be summer news,
Smile to’t before; if winterly, thou need’st
But keep that countenance still. My husband’s hand!
That drug-damn’d Italy hath out-craftied him,
And he’s at some hard point. Speak, man: thy tongue
May take off some extremity, which to read
Would be even mortal to me.
PISANIO

Please you, read;
And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing
The most disdain’d of fortune.
IMOGEN

[Reads] ‘Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the
strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie
bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises,
but from proof as strong as my grief and as certain
as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio,
must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with
the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away
her life: I shall give thee opportunity at
Milford-Haven. She hath my letter for the purpose
where, if thou fear to strike and to make me certain
it is done, thou art the pandar to her dishonour and
equally to me disloyal.’
PISANIO

What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper
Hath cut her throat already. No, ’tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?
IMOGEN

False to his bed! What is it to be false?
To lie in watch there and to think on him?
To weep ‘twixt clock and clock? if sleep
charge nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him
And cry myself awake? that’s false to’s bed, is it?
PISANIO

Alas, good lady!
IMOGEN

I false! Thy conscience witness: Iachimo,
Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;
Thou then look’dst like a villain; now methinks
Thy favour’s good enough. Some jay of Italy
Whose mother was her painting, hath betray’d him:
Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;
And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,
I must be ripp’d:–to pieces with me!–O,
Men’s vows are women’s traitors! All good seeming,
By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
Put on for villany; not born where’t grows,
But worn a bait for ladies.
PISANIO

Good madam, hear me.
IMOGEN

True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,
Were in his time thought false, and Sinon’s weeping
Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
From most true wretchedness: so thou, Posthumus,
Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men;
Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured
From thy great fall. Come, fellow, be thou honest:
Do thou thy master’s bidding: when thou see’st him,
A little witness my obedience: look!
I draw the sword myself: take it, and hit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart;
Fear not; ’tis empty of all things but grief;
Thy master is not there, who was indeed
The riches of it: do his bidding; strike
Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause;
But now thou seem’st a coward.
PISANIO

Hence, vile instrument!
Thou shalt not damn my hand.
IMOGEN

Why, I must die;
And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
No servant of thy master’s. Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand. Come, here’s my heart.
Something’s afore’t. Soft, soft! we’ll no defence;
Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?
The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus,
All turn’d to heresy? Away, away,
Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more
Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools
Believe false teachers: though those that
are betray’d
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.
And thou, Posthumus, thou that didst set up
My disobedience ‘gainst the king my father
And make me put into contempt the suits
Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
It is no act of common passage, but
A strain of rareness: and I grieve myself
To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her
That now thou tirest on, how thy memory
Will then be pang’d by me. Prithee, dispatch:
The lamb entreats the butcher: where’s thy knife?
Thou art too slow to do thy master’s bidding,
When I desire it too.
PISANIO

O gracious lady,
Since I received command to do this business
I have not slept one wink.
IMOGEN

Do’t, and to bed then.
PISANIO

I’ll wake mine eye-balls blind first.
IMOGEN

Wherefore then
Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abused
So many miles with a pretence? this place?
Mine action and thine own? our horses’ labour?
The time inviting thee? the perturb’d court,
For my being absent? whereunto I never
Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far,
To be unbent when thou hast ta’en thy stand,
The elected deer before thee?
PISANIO

But to win time
To lose so bad employment; in the which
I have consider’d of a course. Good lady,
Hear me with patience.
IMOGEN

Talk thy tongue weary; speak
I have heard I am a strumpet; and mine ear
Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.
PISANIO

Then, madam,
I thought you would not back again.
IMOGEN

Most like;
Bringing me here to kill me.
PISANIO

Not so, neither:
But if I were as wise as honest, then
My purpose would prove well. It cannot be
But that my master is abused:
Some villain, ay, and singular in his art.
Hath done you both this cursed injury.
IMOGEN

Some Roman courtezan.
PISANIO

No, on my life.
I’ll give but notice you are dead and send him
Some bloody sign of it; for ’tis commanded
I should do so: you shall be miss’d at court,
And that will well confirm it.
IMOGEN

Why good fellow,
What shall I do the where? where bide? how live?
Or in my life what comfort, when I am
Dead to my husband?
PISANIO

If you’ll back to the court–
IMOGEN

No court, no father; nor no more ado
With that harsh, noble, simple nothing,
That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me
As fearful as a siege.
PISANIO

If not at court,
Then not in Britain must you bide.
IMOGEN

Where then
Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain? I’ the world’s volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in ‘t;
In a great pool a swan’s nest: prithee, think
There’s livers out of Britain.
PISANIO

I am most glad
You think of other place. The ambassador,
Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven
To-morrow: now, if you could wear a mind
Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise
That which, to appear itself, must not yet be
But by self-danger, you should tread a course
Pretty and full of view; yea, haply, near
The residence of Posthumus; so nigh at least
That though his actions were not visible, yet
Report should render him hourly to your ear
As truly as he moves.
IMOGEN

O, for such means!
Though peril to my modesty, not death on’t,
I would adventure.
PISANIO

Well, then, here’s the point:
You must forget to be a woman; change
Command into obedience: fear and niceness–
The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
Woman its pretty self–into a waggish courage:
Ready in gibes, quick-answer’d, saucy and
As quarrelous as the weasel; nay, you must
Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,
Exposing it–but, O, the harder heart!
Alack, no remedy!–to the greedy touch
Of common-kissing Titan, and forget
Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein
You made great Juno angry.
IMOGEN

Nay, be brief
I see into thy end, and am almost
A man already.
PISANIO

First, make yourself but like one.
Fore-thinking this, I have already fit–
‘Tis in my cloak-bag–doublet, hat, hose, all
That answer to them: would you in their serving,
And with what imitation you can borrow
From youth of such a season, ‘fore noble Lucius
Present yourself, desire his service, tell him
wherein you’re happy,–which you’ll make him know,
If that his head have ear in music,–doubtless
With joy he will embrace you, for he’s honourable
And doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad,
You have me, rich; and I will never fail
Beginning nor supplyment.
IMOGEN

Thou art all the comfort
The gods will diet me with. Prithee, away:
There’s more to be consider’d; but we’ll even
All that good time will give us: this attempt
I am soldier to, and will abide it with
A prince’s courage. Away, I prithee.
PISANIO

Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,
Lest, being miss’d, I be suspected of
Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,
Here is a box; I had it from the queen:
What’s in’t is precious; if you are sick at sea,
Or stomach-qualm’d at land, a dram of this
Will drive away distemper. To some shade,
And fit you to your manhood. May the gods
Direct you to the best!
IMOGEN

Amen: I thank thee.
Exeunt, severally

SCENE V. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, Lords, and Attendants
CYMBELINE

Thus far; and so farewell.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Thanks, royal sir.
My emperor hath wrote, I must from hence;
And am right sorry that I must report ye
My master’s enemy.
CYMBELINE

Our subjects, sir,
Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself
To show less sovereignty than they, must needs
Appear unkinglike.
CAIUS LUCIUS

So, sir: I desire of you
A conduct over-land to Milford-Haven.
Madam, all joy befal your grace!
QUEEN

And you!
CYMBELINE

My lords, you are appointed for that office;
The due of honour in no point omit.
So farewell, noble Lucius.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Your hand, my lord.
CLOTEN

Receive it friendly; but from this time forth
I wear it as your enemy.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Sir, the event
Is yet to name the winner: fare you well.
CYMBELINE

Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords,
Till he have cross’d the Severn. Happiness!
Exeunt LUCIUS and Lords
QUEEN

He goes hence frowning: but it honours us
That we have given him cause.
CLOTEN

‘Tis all the better;
Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it.
CYMBELINE

Lucius hath wrote already to the emperor
How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely
Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness:
The powers that he already hath in Gallia
Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves
His war for Britain.
QUEEN

‘Tis not sleepy business;
But must be look’d to speedily and strongly.
CYMBELINE

Our expectation that it would be thus
Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen,
Where is our daughter? She hath not appear’d
Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender’d
The duty of the day: she looks us like
A thing more made of malice than of duty:
We have noted it. Call her before us; for
We have been too slight in sufferance.
Exit an Attendant
QUEEN

Royal sir,
Since the exile of Posthumus, most retired
Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,
‘Tis time must do. Beseech your majesty,
Forbear sharp speeches to her: she’s a lady
So tender of rebukes that words are strokes
And strokes death to her.
Re-enter Attendant
CYMBELINE

Where is she, sir? How
Can her contempt be answer’d?
Attendant

Please you, sir,
Her chambers are all lock’d; and there’s no answer
That will be given to the loudest noise we make.
QUEEN

My lord, when last I went to visit her,
She pray’d me to excuse her keeping close,
Whereto constrain’d by her infirmity,
She should that duty leave unpaid to you,
Which daily she was bound to proffer: this
She wish’d me to make known; but our great court
Made me to blame in memory.
CYMBELINE

Her doors lock’d?
Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear
Prove false!
Exit
QUEEN

Son, I say, follow the king.
CLOTEN

That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,
have not seen these two days.
QUEEN

Go, look after.
Exit CLOTEN
Pisanio, thou that stand’st so for Posthumus!
He hath a drug of mine; I pray his absence
Proceed by swallowing that, for he believes
It is a thing most precious. But for her,
Where is she gone? Haply, despair hath seized her,
Or, wing’d with fervor of her love, she’s flown
To her desired Posthumus: gone she is
To death or to dishonour; and my end
Can make good use of either: she being down,
I have the placing of the British crown.
Re-enter CLOTEN
How now, my son!
CLOTEN

‘Tis certain she is fled.
Go in and cheer the king: he rages; none
Dare come about him.
QUEEN

[Aside] All the better: may
This night forestall him of the coming day!
Exit
CLOTEN

I love and hate her: for she’s fair and royal,
And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite
Than lady, ladies, woman; from every one
The best she hath, and she, of all compounded,
Outsells them all; I love her therefore: but
Disdaining me and throwing favours on
The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment
That what’s else rare is choked; and in that point
I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed,
To be revenged upon her. For when fools Shall–
Enter PISANIO
Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah?
Come hither: ah, you precious pander! Villain,
Where is thy lady? In a word; or else
Thou art straightway with the fiends.
PISANIO

O, good my lord!
CLOTEN

Where is thy lady? Or, by Jupiter,–
I will not ask again. Close villain,
I’ll have this secret from thy heart, or rip
Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus?
From whose so many weights of baseness cannot
A dram of worth be drawn.
PISANIO

Alas, my lord,
How can she be with him? When was she missed?
He is in Rome.
CLOTEN

Where is she, sir? Come nearer;
No further halting: satisfy me home
What is become of her.
PISANIO

O, my all-worthy lord!
CLOTEN

All-worthy villain!
Discover where thy mistress is at once,
At the next word: no more of ‘worthy lord!’
Speak, or thy silence on the instant is
Thy condemnation and thy death.
PISANIO

Then, sir,
This paper is the history of my knowledge
Touching her flight.
Presenting a letter
CLOTEN

Let’s see’t. I will pursue her
Even to Augustus’ throne.
PISANIO

[Aside] Or this, or perish.
She’s far enough; and what he learns by this
May prove his travel, not her danger.
CLOTEN

Hum!
PISANIO

[Aside] I’ll write to my lord she’s dead. O Imogen,
Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again!
CLOTEN

Sirrah, is this letter true?
PISANIO

Sir, as I think.
CLOTEN

It is Posthumus’ hand; I know’t. Sirrah, if thou
wouldst not be a villain, but do me true service,
undergo those employments wherein I should have
cause to use thee with a serious industry, that is,
what villany soe’er I bid thee do, to perform it
directly and truly, I would think thee an honest
man: thou shouldst neither want my means for thy
relief nor my voice for thy preferment.
PISANIO

Well, my good lord.
CLOTEN

Wilt thou serve me? for since patiently and
constantly thou hast stuck to the bare fortune of
that beggar Posthumus, thou canst not, in the
course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower of
mine: wilt thou serve me?
PISANIO

Sir, I will.
CLOTEN

Give me thy hand; here’s my purse. Hast any of thy
late master’s garments in thy possession?
PISANIO

I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he
wore when he took leave of my lady and mistress.
CLOTEN

The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit
hither: let it be thy lint service; go.
PISANIO

I shall, my lord.
Exit
CLOTEN

Meet thee at Milford-Haven!–I forgot to ask him one
thing; I’ll remember’t anon:–even there, thou
villain Posthumus, will I kill thee. I would these
garments were come. She said upon a time–the
bitterness of it I now belch from my heart–that she
held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect
than my noble and natural person together with the
adornment of my qualities. With that suit upon my
back, will I ravish her: first kill him, and in her
eyes; there shall she see my valour, which will then
be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my
speech of insultment ended on his dead body, and
when my lust hath dined,–which, as I say, to vex
her I will execute in the clothes that she so
praised,–to the court I’ll knock her back, foot
her home again. She hath despised me rejoicingly,
and I’ll be merry in my revenge.
Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes
Be those the garments?
PISANIO

Ay, my noble lord.
CLOTEN

How long is’t since she went to Milford-Haven?
PISANIO

She can scarce be there yet.
CLOTEN

Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second
thing that I have commanded thee: the third is,
that thou wilt be a voluntary mute to my design. Be
but duteous, and true preferment shall tender itself
to thee. My revenge is now at Milford: would I had
wings to follow it! Come, and be true.
Exit
PISANIO

Thou bid’st me to my loss: for true to thee
Were to prove false, which I will never be,
To him that is most true. To Milford go,
And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow,
You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool’s speed
Be cross’d with slowness; labour be his meed!
Exit

SCENE VI. Wales. Before the cave of Belarius.

Enter IMOGEN, in boy’s clothes
IMOGEN

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

You, Polydote, have proved best woodman and
Are master of the feast: Cadwal and I
Will play the cook and servant; ’tis our match:
The sweat of industry would dry and die,
But for the end it works to. Come; our stomachs
Will make what’s homely savoury: weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard. Now peace be here,
Poor house, that keep’st thyself!
GUIDERIUS

I am thoroughly weary.
ARVIRAGUS

I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.
GUIDERIUS

There is cold meat i’ the cave; we’ll browse on that,
Whilst what we have kill’d be cook’d.
BELARIUS

[Looking into the cave]
Stay; come not in.
But that it eats our victuals, I should think
Here were a fairy.
GUIDERIUS

What’s the matter, sir?
BELARIUS

By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
No elder than a boy!
Re-enter IMOGEN
IMOGEN

Good masters, harm me not:
Before I enter’d here, I call’d; and thought
To have begg’d or bought what I have took:
good troth,
I have stol’n nought, nor would not, though I had found
Gold strew’d i’ the floor. Here’s money for my meat:
I would have left it on the board so soon
As I had made my meal, and parted
With prayers for the provider.
GUIDERIUS

Money, youth?
ARVIRAGUS

All gold and silver rather turn to dirt!
As ’tis no better reckon’d, but of those
Who worship dirty gods.
IMOGEN

I see you’re angry:
Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should
Have died had I not made it.
BELARIUS

Whither bound?
IMOGEN

To Milford-Haven.
BELARIUS

What’s your name?
IMOGEN

Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who
Is bound for Italy; he embark’d at Milford;
To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,
I am fall’n in this offence.
BELARIUS

Prithee, fair youth,
Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
By this rude place we live in. Well encounter’d!
‘Tis almost night: you shall have better cheer
Ere you depart: and thanks to stay and eat it.
Boys, bid him welcome.
GUIDERIUS

Were you a woman, youth,
I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty,
I bid for you as I’d buy.
ARVIRAGUS

I’ll make’t my comfort
He is a man; I’ll love him as my brother:
And such a welcome as I’d give to him
After long absence, such is yours: most welcome!
Be sprightly, for you fall ‘mongst friends.
IMOGEN

‘Mongst friends,
If brothers.
Aside
Would it had been so, that they
Had been my father’s sons! then had my prize
Been less, and so more equal ballasting
To thee, Posthumus.
BELARIUS

He wrings at some distress.
GUIDERIUS

Would I could free’t!
ARVIRAGUS

Or I, whate’er it be,
What pain it cost, what danger. God’s!
BELARIUS

Hark, boys.
Whispering
IMOGEN

Great men,
That had a court no bigger than this cave,
That did attend themselves and had the virtue
Which their own conscience seal’d them–laying by
That nothing-gift of differing multitudes–
Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!
I’d change my sex to be companion with them,
Since Leonatus’s false.
BELARIUS

It shall be so.
Boys, we’ll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in:
Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp’d,
We’ll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
So far as thou wilt speak it.
GUIDERIUS

Pray, draw near.
ARVIRAGUS

The night to the owl and morn to the lark
less welcome.
IMOGEN

Thanks, sir.
ARVIRAGUS

I pray, draw near.
Exeunt

SCENE VII. Rome. A public place.

Enter two Senators and Tribunes
First Senator

This is the tenor of the emperor’s writ:
That since the common men are now in action
‘Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,
And that the legions now in Gallia are
Full weak to undertake our wars against
The fall’n-off Britons, that we do incite
The gentry to this business. He creates
Lucius preconsul: and to you the tribunes,
For this immediate levy, he commends
His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!
First Tribune

Is Lucius general of the forces?
Second Senator

Ay.
First Tribune

Remaining now in Gallia?
First Senator

With those legions
Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy
Must be supplyant: the words of your commission
Will tie you to the numbers and the time
Of their dispatch.
First Tribune

We will discharge our duty.
Exeunt

ACT IV
SCENE I. Wales: near the cave of Belarius.

Enter CLOTEN
CLOTEN

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

SCENE II. Before the cave of Belarius.

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

[To IMOGEN] You are not well: remain here in the cave;
We’ll come to you after hunting.
ARVIRAGUS

[To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here
Are we not brothers?
IMOGEN

So man and man should be;
But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
GUIDERIUS

Go you to hunting; I’ll abide with him.
IMOGEN

So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
But not so citizen a wanton as
To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me;
Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom
Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
To one not sociable: I am not very sick,
Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
I’ll rob none but myself; and let me die,
Stealing so poorly.
GUIDERIUS

I love thee; I have spoke it
How much the quantity, the weight as much,
As I do love my father.
BELARIUS

What! how! how!
ARVIRAGUS

If it be sin to say so, I yoke me
In my good brother’s fault: I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love’s reason’s without reason: the bier at door,
And a demand who is’t shall die, I’d say
‘My father, not this youth.’
BELARIUS

[Aside] O noble strain!
O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
Cowards father cowards and base things sire base:
Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
I’m not their father; yet who this should be,
Doth miracle itself, loved before me.
‘Tis the ninth hour o’ the morn.
ARVIRAGUS

Brother, farewell.
IMOGEN

I wish ye sport.
ARVIRAGUS

You health. So please you, sir.
IMOGEN

[Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies
I have heard!
Our courtiers say all’s savage but at court:
Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
I’ll now taste of thy drug.
Swallows some
GUIDERIUS

I could not stir him:
He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
ARVIRAGUS

Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter
I might know more.
BELARIUS

To the field, to the field!
We’ll leave you for this time: go in and rest.
ARVIRAGUS

We’ll not be long away.
BELARIUS

Pray, be not sick,
For you must be our housewife.
IMOGEN

Well or ill,
I am bound to you.
BELARIUS

And shalt be ever.
Exit IMOGEN, to the cave
This youth, how’er distress’d, appears he hath had
Good ancestors.
ARVIRAGUS

How angel-like he sings!
GUIDERIUS

But his neat cookery! he cut our roots
In characters,
And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick
And he her dieter.
ARVIRAGUS

Nobly he yokes
A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
From so divine a temple, to commix
With winds that sailors rail at.
GUIDERIUS

I do note
That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs together.
ARVIRAGUS

Grow, patience!
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine!
BELARIUS

It is great morning. Come, away!–
Who’s there?
Enter CLOTEN
CLOTEN

I cannot find those runagates; that villain
Hath mock’d me. I am faint.
BELARIUS

‘Those runagates!’
Means he not us? I partly know him: ’tis
Cloten, the son o’ the queen. I fear some ambush.
I saw him not these many years, and yet
I know ’tis he. We are held as outlaws: hence!
GUIDERIUS

He is but one: you and my brother search
What companies are near: pray you, away;
Let me alone with him.
Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
CLOTEN

Soft! What are you
That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers?
I have heard of such. What slave art thou?
GUIDERIUS

A thing
More slavish did I ne’er than answering
A slave without a knock.
CLOTEN

Thou art a robber,
A law-breaker, a villain: yield thee, thief.
GUIDERIUS

To who? to thee? What art thou? Have not I
An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?
Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art,
Why I should yield to thee?
CLOTEN

Thou villain base,
Know’st me not by my clothes?
GUIDERIUS

No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes,
Which, as it seems, make thee.
CLOTEN

Thou precious varlet,
My tailor made them not.
GUIDERIUS

Hence, then, and thank
The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;
I am loath to beat thee.
CLOTEN

Thou injurious thief,
Hear but my name, and tremble.
GUIDERIUS

What’s thy name?
CLOTEN

Cloten, thou villain.
GUIDERIUS

Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
I cannot tremble at it: were it Toad, or
Adder, Spider,
‘Twould move me sooner.
CLOTEN

To thy further fear,
Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
I am son to the queen.
GUIDERIUS

I am sorry for ‘t; not seeming
So worthy as thy birth.
CLOTEN

Art not afeard?
GUIDERIUS

Those that I reverence those I fear, the wise:
At fools I laugh, not fear them.
CLOTEN

Die the death:
When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
I’ll follow those that even now fled hence,
And on the gates of Lud’s-town set your heads:
Yield, rustic mountaineer.
Exeunt, fighting
Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
BELARIUS

No companies abroad?
ARVIRAGUS

None in the world: you did mistake him, sure.
BELARIUS

I cannot tell: long is it since I saw him,
But time hath nothing blurr’d those lines of favour
Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,
And burst of speaking, were as his: I am absolute
‘Twas very Cloten.
ARVIRAGUS

In this place we left them:
I wish my brother make good time with him,
You say he is so fell.
BELARIUS

Being scarce made up,
I mean, to man, he had not apprehension
Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment
Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother.
Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN’S head
GUIDERIUS

This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;
There was no money in’t: not Hercules
Could have knock’d out his brains, for he had none:
Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne
My head as I do his.
BELARIUS

What hast thou done?
GUIDERIUS

I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten’s head,
Son to the queen, after his own report;
Who call’d me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
With his own single hand he’ld take us in
Displace our heads where–thank the gods!–they grow,
And set them on Lud’s-town.
BELARIUS

We are all undone.
GUIDERIUS

Why, worthy father, what have we to lose,
But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
Protects not us: then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
Play judge and executioner all himself,
For we do fear the law? What company
Discover you abroad?
BELARIUS

No single soul
Can we set eye on; but in all safe reason
He must have some attendants. Though his humour
Was nothing but mutation, ay, and that
From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not
Absolute madness could so far have raved
To bring him here alone; although perhaps
It may be heard at court that such as we
Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time
May make some stronger head; the which he hearing–
As it is like him–might break out, and swear
He’ld fetch us in; yet is’t not probable
To come alone, either he so undertaking,
Or they so suffering: then on good ground we fear,
If we do fear this body hath a tail
More perilous than the head.
ARVIRAGUS

Let ordinance
Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe’er,
My brother hath done well.
BELARIUS

I had no mind
To hunt this day: the boy Fidele’s sickness
Did make my way long forth.
GUIDERIUS

With his own sword,
Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta’en
His head from him: I’ll throw’t into the creek
Behind our rock; and let it to the sea,
And tell the fishes he’s the queen’s son, Cloten:
That’s all I reck.
Exit
BELARIUS

I fear ’twill be revenged:
Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done’t! though valour
Becomes thee well enough.
ARVIRAGUS

Would I had done’t
So the revenge alone pursued me! Polydore,
I love thee brotherly, but envy much
Thou hast robb’d me of this deed: I would revenges,
That possible strength might meet, would seek us through
And put us to our answer.
BELARIUS

Well, ’tis done:
We’ll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger
Where there’s no profit. I prithee, to our rock;
You and Fidele play the cooks: I’ll stay
Till hasty Polydote return, and bring him
To dinner presently.
ARVIRAGUS

Poor sick Fidele!
I’ll weringly to him: to gain his colour
I’ld let a parish of such Clotens’ blood,
And praise myself for charity.
Exit
BELARIUS

O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon’st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale. ‘Tis wonder
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn’d, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from other, valour
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sow’d. Yet still it’s strange
What Cloten’s being here to us portends,
Or what his death will bring us.
Re-enter GUIDERIUS
GUIDERIUS

Where’s my brother?
I have sent Cloten’s clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother: his body’s hostage
For his return.
Solemn music
BELARIUS

My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
GUIDERIUS

Is he at home?
BELARIUS

He went hence even now.
GUIDERIUS

What does he mean? since death of my dear’st mother
it did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
Is Cadwal mad?
BELARIUS

Look, here he comes,
And brings the dire occasion in his arms
Of what we blame him for.
Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead, bearing her in his arms
ARVIRAGUS

The bird is dead
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp’d from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turn’d my leaping-time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.
GUIDERIUS

O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well
As when thou grew’st thyself.
BELARIUS

O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.
How found you him?
ARVIRAGUS

Stark, as you see:
Thus smiling, as some fly hid tickled slumber,
Not as death’s dart, being laugh’d at; his
right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.
GUIDERIUS

Where?
ARVIRAGUS

O’ the floor;
His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put
My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
Answer’d my steps too loud.
GUIDERIUS

Why, he but sleeps:
If he be gone, he’ll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.
ARVIRAGUS

With fairest flowers
Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten’d not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill,–O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!–bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.
GUIDERIUS

Prithee, have done;
And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
And not protract with admiration what
Is now due debt. To the grave!
ARVIRAGUS

Say, where shall’s lay him?
GUIDERIUS

By good Euriphile, our mother.
ARVIRAGUS

Be’t so:
And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
As once our mother; use like note and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.
GUIDERIUS

Cadwal,
I cannot sing: I’ll weep, and word it with thee;
For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
Than priests and fanes that lie.
ARVIRAGUS

We’ll speak it, then.
BELARIUS

Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten
Is quite forgot. He was a queen’s son, boys;
And though he came our enemy, remember
He was paid for that: though mean and
mighty, rotting
Together, have one dust, yet reverence,
That angel of the world, doth make distinction
Of place ‘tween high and low. Our foe was princely
And though you took his life, as being our foe,
Yet bury him as a prince.
GUIDERIUS

Pray You, fetch him hither.
Thersites’ body is as good as Ajax’,
When neither are alive.
ARVIRAGUS

If you’ll go fetch him,
We’ll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.
Exit BELARIUS
GUIDERIUS

Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
My father hath a reason for’t.
ARVIRAGUS

‘Tis true.
GUIDERIUS

Come on then, and remove him.
ARVIRAGUS

So. Begin.
SONG
GUIDERIUS

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

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

Fear no more the lightning flash,
ARVIRAGUS

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
GUIDERIUS

Fear not slander, censure rash;
ARVIRAGUS

Thou hast finish’d joy and moan:
GUIDERIUS

ARVIRAGUS

All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
GUIDERIUS

No exorciser harm thee!
ARVIRAGUS

Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
GUIDERIUS

Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
ARVIRAGUS

Nothing ill come near thee!
GUIDERIUS

ARVIRAGUS

Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN
GUIDERIUS

We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down.
BELARIUS

Here’s a few flowers; but ’bout midnight, more:
The herbs that have on them cold dew o’ the night
Are strewings fitt’st for graves. Upon their faces.
You were as flowers, now wither’d: even so
These herblets shall, which we upon you strew.
Come on, away: apart upon our knees.
The ground that gave them first has them again:
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
Exeunt BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS
IMOGEN

[Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; which is
the way?–
I thank you.–By yond bush?–Pray, how far thither?
‘Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?–
I have gone all night. ‘Faith, I’ll lie down and sleep.
But, soft! no bedfellow!–O god s and goddesses!
Seeing the body of CLOTEN
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;
This bloody man, the care on’t. I hope I dream;
For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,
And cook to honest creatures: but ’tis not so;
‘Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
I tremble stiff with fear: but if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it!
The dream’s here still: even when I wake, it is
Without me, as within me; not imagined, felt.
A headless man! The garments of Posthumus!
I know the shape of’s leg: this is his hand;
His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;
The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial face
Murder in heaven?–How!–‘Tis gone. Pisanio,
All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
Hast here cut off my lord. To write and read
Be henceforth treacherous! Damn’d Pisanio
Hath with his forged letters,–damn’d Pisanio–
From this most bravest vessel of the world
Struck the main-top! O Posthumus! alas,
Where is thy head? where’s that? Ay me!
where’s that?
Pisanio might have kill’d thee at the heart,
And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?
‘Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them
Have laid this woe here. O, ’tis pregnant, pregnant!
The drug he gave me, which he said was precious
And cordial to me, have I not found it
Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home:
This is Pisanio’s deed, and Cloten’s: O!
Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,
That we the horrider may seem to those
Which chance to find us: O, my lord, my lord!
Falls on the body
Enter LUCIUS, a Captain and other Officers, and a Soothsayer
Captain

To them the legions garrison’d in Gailia,
After your will, have cross’d the sea, attending
You here at Milford-Haven with your ships:
They are in readiness.
CAIUS LUCIUS

But what from Rome?
Captain

The senate hath stirr’d up the confiners
And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,
That promise noble service: and they come
Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,
Syenna’s brother.
CAIUS LUCIUS

When expect you them?
Captain

With the next benefit o’ the wind.
CAIUS LUCIUS

This forwardness
Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers
Be muster’d; bid the captains look to’t. Now, sir,
What have you dream’d of late of this war’s purpose?
Soothsayer

Last night the very gods show’d me a vision–
I fast and pray’d for their intelligence–thus:
I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’d
From the spongy south to this part of the west,
There vanish’d in the sunbeams: which portends–
Unless my sins abuse my divination–
Success to the Roman host.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Dream often so,
And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here
Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime
It was a worthy building. How! a page!
Or dead, or sleeping on him? But dead rather;
For nature doth abhor to make his bed
With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.
Let’s see the boy’s face.
Captain

He’s alive, my lord.
CAIUS LUCIUS

He’ll then instruct us of this body. Young one,
Inform us of thy fortunes, for it seems
They crave to be demanded. Who is this
Thou makest thy bloody pillow? Or who was he
That, otherwise than noble nature did,
Hath alter’d that good picture? What’s thy interest
In this sad wreck? How came it? Who is it?
What art thou?
IMOGEN

I am nothing: or if not,
Nothing to be were better. This was my master,
A very valiant Briton and a good,
That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!
There is no more such masters: I may wander
From east to occident, cry out for service,
Try many, all good, serve truly, never
Find such another master.
CAIUS LUCIUS

‘Lack, good youth!
Thou movest no less with thy complaining than
Thy master in bleeding: say his name, good friend.
IMOGEN

Richard du Champ.
Aside
If I do lie and do
No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope
They’ll pardon it.–Say you, sir?
CAIUS LUCIUS

Thy name?
IMOGEN

Fidele, sir.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Thou dost approve thyself the very same:
Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.
Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say
Thou shalt be so well master’d, but, be sure,
No less beloved. The Roman emperor’s letters,
Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner
Than thine own worth prefer thee: go with me.
IMOGEN

I’ll follow, sir. But first, an’t please the gods,
I’ll hide my master from the flies, as deep
As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when
With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha’ strew’d his grave,
And on it said a century of prayers,
Such as I can, twice o’er, I’ll weep and sigh;
And leaving so his service, follow you,
So please you entertain me.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Ay, good youth!
And rather father thee than master thee.
My friends,
The boy hath taught us manly duties: let us
Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,
And make him with our pikes and partisans
A grave: come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr’d
By thee to us, and he shall be interr’d
As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes
Some falls are means the happier to arise.
Exeunt

SCENE III. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Enter CYMBELINE, Lords, PISANIO, and Attendants
CYMBELINE

Again; and bring me word how ’tis with her.
Exit an Attendant
A fever with the absence of her son,
A madness, of which her life’s in danger. Heavens,
How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen,
The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen
Upon a desperate bed, and in a time
When fearful wars point at me; her son gone,
So needful for this present: it strikes me, past
The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow,
Who needs must know of her departure and
Dost seem so ignorant, we’ll enforce it from thee
By a sharp torture.
PISANIO

Sir, my life is yours;
I humbly set it at your will; but, for my mistress,
I nothing know where she remains, why gone,
Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your highness,
Hold me your loyal servant.
First Lord

Good my liege,
The day that she was missing he was here:
I dare be bound he’s true and shall perform
All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten,
There wants no diligence in seeking him,
And will, no doubt, be found.
CYMBELINE

The time is troublesome.
To PISANIO
We’ll slip you for a season; but our jealousy
Does yet depend.
First Lord

So please your majesty,
The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,
Are landed on your coast, with a supply
Of Roman gentlemen, by the senate sent.
CYMBELINE

Now for the counsel of my son and queen!
I am amazed with matter.
First Lord

Good my liege,
Your preparation can affront no less
Than what you hear of: come more, for more
you’re ready:
The want is but to put those powers in motion
That long to move.
CYMBELINE

I thank you. Let’s withdraw;
And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not
What can from Italy annoy us; but
We grieve at chances here. Away!
Exeunt all but PISANIO
PISANIO

I heard no letter from my master since
I wrote him Imogen was slain: ’tis strange:
Nor hear I from my mistress who did promise
To yield me often tidings: neither know I
What is betid to Cloten; but remain
Perplex’d in all. The heavens still must work.
Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.
These present wars shall find I love my country,
Even to the note o’ the king, or I’ll fall in them.
All other doubts, by time let them be clear’d:
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer’d.
Exit

SCENE IV. Wales: before the cave of Belarius.

Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS.
GUIDERIUS

The noise is round about us.
BELARIUS

Let us from it.
ARVIRAGUS

What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
From action and adventure?
GUIDERIUS

Nay, what hope
Have we in hiding us? This way, the Romans
Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us
For barbarous and unnatural revolts
During their use, and slay us after.
BELARIUS

Sons,
We’ll higher to the mountains; there secure us.
To the king’s party there’s no going: newness
Of Cloten’s death–we being not known, not muster’d
Among the bands–may drive us to a render
Where we have lived, and so extort from’s that
Which we have done, whose answer would be death
Drawn on with torture.
GUIDERIUS

This is, sir, a doubt
In such a time nothing becoming you,
Nor satisfying us.
ARVIRAGUS

It is not likely
That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,
Behold their quarter’d fires, have both their eyes
And ears so cloy’d importantly as now,
That they will waste their time upon our note,
To know from whence we are.
BELARIUS

O, I am known
Of many in the army: many years,
Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
From my remembrance. And, besides, the king
Hath not deserved my service nor your loves;
Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless
To have the courtesy your cradle promised,
But to be still hot summer’s tamings and
The shrinking slaves of winter.
GUIDERIUS

Than be so
Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army:
I and my brother are not known; yourself
So out of thought, and thereto so o’ergrown,
Cannot be question’d.
ARVIRAGUS

By this sun that shines,
I’ll thither: what thing is it that I never
Did see man die! scarce ever look’d on blood,
But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!
Never bestrid a horse, save one that had
A rider like myself, who ne’er wore rowel
Nor iron on his heel! I am ashamed
To look upon the holy sun, to have
The benefit of his blest beams, remaining
So long a poor unknown.
GUIDERIUS

By heavens, I’ll go:
If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,
I’ll take the better care, but if you will not,
The hazard therefore due fall on me by
The hands of Romans!
ARVIRAGUS

So say I amen.
BELARIUS

No reason I, since of your lives you set
So slight a valuation, should reserve
My crack’d one to more care. Have with you, boys!
If in your country wars you chance to die,
That is my bed too, lads, an there I’ll lie:
Lead, lead.
Aside
The time seems long; their blood
thinks scorn,
Till it fly out and show them princes born.
Exeunt

ACT V
SCENE I. Britain. The Roman camp.

Enter POSTHUMUS, with a bloody handkerchief
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

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

SCENE II. Field of battle between the British and Roman camps.

Enter, from one side, LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman Army: from the other side, the British Army; POSTHUMUS LEONATUS following, like a poor soldier. They march over and go out. Then enter again, in skirmish, IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS LEONATUS he vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then leaves him
IACHIMO

The heaviness and guilt within my bosom
Takes off my manhood: I have belied a lady,
The princess of this country, and the air on’t
Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,
A very drudge of nature’s, have subdued me
In my profession? Knighthoods and honours, borne
As I wear mine, are titles but of scorn.
If that thy gentry, Britain, go before
This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds
Is that we scarce are men and you are gods.
Exit
The battle continues; the Britons fly; CYMBELINE is taken: then enter, to his rescue, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS
BELARIUS

Stand, stand! We have the advantage of the ground;
The lane is guarded: nothing routs us but
The villany of our fears.
GUIDERIUS

ARVIRAGUS

Stand, stand, and fight!
Re-enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and seconds the Britons: they rescue CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS, and IACHIMO, with IMOGEN
CAIUS LUCIUS

Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself;
For friends kill friends, and the disorder’s such
As war were hoodwink’d.
IACHIMO

‘Tis their fresh supplies.
CAIUS LUCIUS

It is a day turn’d strangely: or betimes
Let’s reinforce, or fly.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the field.

Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and a British Lord
Lord

Camest thou from where they made the stand?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I did.
Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.
Lord

I did.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

No blame be to you, sir; for all was lost,
But that the heavens fought: the king himself
Of his wings destitute, the army broken,
And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying
Through a straight lane; the enemy full-hearted,
Lolling the tongue with slaughtering, having work
More plentiful than tools to do’t, struck down
Some mortally, some slightly touch’d, some falling
Merely through fear; that the straight pass was damm’d
With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living
To die with lengthen’d shame.
Lord

Where was this lane?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Close by the battle, ditch’d, and wall’d with turf;
Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier,
An honest one, I warrant; who deserved
So long a breeding as his white beard came to,
In doing this for’s country: athwart the lane,
He, with two striplings-lads more like to run
The country base than to commit such slaughter
With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer
Than those for preservation cased, or shame–
Made good the passage; cried to those that fled,
‘Our Britain s harts die flying, not our men:
To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards. Stand;
Or we are Romans and will give you that
Like beasts which you shun beastly, and may save,
But to look back in frown: stand, stand.’
These three,
Three thousand confident, in act as many–
For three performers are the file when all
The rest do nothing–with this word ‘Stand, stand,’
Accommodated by the place, more charming
With their own nobleness, which could have turn’d
A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks,
Part shame, part spirit renew’d; that some,
turn’d coward
But by example–O, a sin in war,
Damn’d in the first beginners!–gan to look
The way that they did, and to grin like lions
Upon the pikes o’ the hunters. Then began
A stop i’ the chaser, a retire, anon
A rout, confusion thick; forthwith they fly
Chickens, the way which they stoop’d eagles; slaves,
The strides they victors made: and now our cowards,
Like fragments in hard voyages, became
The life o’ the need: having found the backdoor open
Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!
Some slain before; some dying; some their friends
O’er borne i’ the former wave: ten, chased by one,
Are now each one the slaughter-man of twenty:
Those that would die or ere resist are grown
The mortal bugs o’ the field.
Lord

This was strange chance
A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Nay, do not wonder at it: you are made
Rather to wonder at the things you hear
Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon’t,
And vent it for a mockery? Here is one:
‘Two boys, an old man twice a boy, a lane,
Preserved the Britons, was the Romans’ bane.’
Lord

Nay, be not angry, sir.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

‘Lack, to what end?
Who dares not stand his foe, I’ll be his friend;
For if he’ll do as he is made to do,
I know he’ll quickly fly my friendship too.
You have put me into rhyme.
Lord

Farewell; you’re angry.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Still going?
Exit Lord
This is a lord! O noble misery,
To be i’ the field, and ask ‘what news?’ of me!
To-day how many would have given their honours
To have saved their carcasses! took heel to do’t,
And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm’d,
Could not find death where I did hear him groan,
Nor feel him where he struck: being an ugly monster,
‘Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we
That draw his knives i’ the war. Well, I will find him
For being now a favourer to the Briton,
No more a Briton, I have resumed again
The part I came in: fight I will no more,
But yield me to the veriest hind that shall
Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is
Here made by the Roman; great the answer be
Britons must take. For me, my ransom’s death;
On either side I come to spend my breath;
Which neither here I’ll keep nor bear again,
But end it by some means for Imogen.
Enter two British Captains and Soldiers
First Captain

Great Jupiter be praised! Lucius is taken.
‘Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels.
Second Captain

There was a fourth man, in a silly habit,
That gave the affront with them.
First Captain

So ’tis reported:
But none of ’em can be found. Stand! who’s there?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

A Roman,
Who had not now been drooping here, if seconds
Had answer’d him.
Second Captain

Lay hands on him; a dog!
A leg of Rome shall not return to tell
What crows have peck’d them here. He brags
his service
As if he were of note: bring him to the king.
Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Soldiers, Attendants, and Roman Captives. The Captains present POSTHUMUS LEONATUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers him over to a Gaoler: then exeunt omnes

SCENE IV. A British prison.

Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and two Gaolers
First Gaoler

You shall not now be stol’n, you have locks upon you;
So graze as you find pasture.
Second Gaoler

Ay, or a stomach.
Exeunt Gaolers
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Most welcome, bondage! for thou art away,
think, to liberty: yet am I better
Than one that’s sick o’ the gout; since he had rather
Groan so in perpetuity than be cured
By the sure physician, death, who is the key
To unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter’d
More than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me
The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,
Then, free for ever! Is’t enough I am sorry?
So children temporal fathers do appease;
Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent?
I cannot do it better than in gyves,
Desired more than constrain’d: to satisfy,
If of my freedom ’tis the main part, take
No stricter render of me than my all.
I know you are more clement than vile men,
Who of their broken debtors take a third,
A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again
On their abatement: that’s not my desire:
For Imogen’s dear life take mine; and though
‘Tis not so dear, yet ’tis a life; you coin’d it:
‘Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;
Though light, take pieces for the figure’s sake:
You rather mine, being yours: and so, great powers,
If you will take this audit, take this life,
And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!
I’ll speak to thee in silence.
Sleeps
Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS LEONATUS, father to Posthumus Leonatus, an old man, attired like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother to Posthumus Leonatus, with music before them: then, after other music, follow the two young Leonati, brothers to Posthumus Leonatus, with wounds as they died in the wars. They circle Posthumus Leonatus round, as he lies sleeping
Sicilius Leonatus

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

Lucina lent not me her aid,
But took me in my throes;
That from me was Posthumus ript,
Came crying ‘mongst his foes,
A thing of pity!
Sicilius Leonatus

Great nature, like his ancestry,
Moulded the stuff so fair,
That he deserved the praise o’ the world,
As great Sicilius’ heir.
First Brother

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

With marriage wherefore was he mock’d,
To be exiled, and thrown
From Leonati seat, and cast
From her his dearest one,
Sweet Imogen?
Sicilius Leonatus

Why did you suffer Iachimo,
Slight thing of Italy,
To taint his nobler heart and brain
With needless jealosy;
And to become the geck and scorn
O’ th’ other’s villany?
Second Brother

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

Like hardiment Posthumus hath
To Cymbeline perform’d:
Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,
Why hast thou thus adjourn’d
The graces for his merits due,
Being all to dolours turn’d?
Sicilius Leonatus

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

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

Peep through thy marble mansion; help;
Or we poor ghosts will cry
To the shining synod of the rest
Against thy deity.
First Brother

Second Brother

Help, Jupiter; or we appeal,
And from thy justice fly.
Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The Apparitions fall on their knees
Jupiter

No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts
Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt, you know,
Sky-planted batters all rebelling coasts?
Poor shadows of Elysium, hence, and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers:
Be not with mortal accidents opprest;
No care of yours it is; you know ’tis ours.
Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay’d, delighted. Be content;
Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift:
His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
Our Jovial star reign’d at his birth, and in
Our temple was he married. Rise, and fade.
He shall be lord of lady Imogen,
And happier much by his affliction made.
This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine:
and so, away: no further with your din
Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.
Ascends
Sicilius Leonatus

He came in thunder; his celestial breath
Was sulphurous to smell: the holy eagle
Stoop’d as to foot us: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleased.
All

Thanks, Jupiter!
Sicilius Leonatus

The marble pavement closes, he is enter’d
His radiant root. Away! and, to be blest,
Let us with care perform his great behest.
The Apparitions vanish
Posthumus Leonatus

[Waking] Sleep, thou hast been a grandsire, and begot
A father to me; and thou hast created
A mother and two brothers: but, O scorn!
Gone! they went hence so soon as they were born:
And so I am awake. Poor wretches that depend
On greatness’ favour dream as I have done,
Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve:
Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
And yet are steep’d in favours: so am I,
That have this golden chance and know not why.
What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects
So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
As good as promise.
Reads
‘When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself unknown,
without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of
tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be
lopped branches, which, being dead many years,
shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock and
freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries,
Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.’
‘Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen
Tongue and brain not; either both or nothing;
Or senseless speaking or a speaking such
As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I’ll keep, if but for sympathy.
Re-enter First Gaoler
First Gaoler

Come, sir, are you ready for death?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Over-roasted rather; ready long ago.
First Gaoler

Hanging is the word, sir: if
you be ready for that, you are well cooked.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

So, if I prove a good repast to the
spectators, the dish pays the shot.
First Gaoler

A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is,
you shall be called to no more payments, fear no
more tavern-bills; which are often the sadness of
parting, as the procuring of mirth: you come in
flint for want of meat, depart reeling with too
much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and
sorry that you are paid too much; purse and brain
both empty; the brain the heavier for being too
light, the purse too light, being drawn of
heaviness: of this contradiction you shall now be
quit. O, the charity of a penny cord! It sums up
thousands in a trice: you have no true debitor and
creditor but it; of what’s past, is, and to come,
the discharge: your neck, sir, is pen, book and
counters; so the acquittance follows.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I am merrier to die than thou art to live.
First Gaoler

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the
tooth-ache: but a man that were to sleep your
sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he
would change places with his officer; for, look you,
sir, you know not which way you shall go.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Yes, indeed do I, fellow.
First Gaoler

Your death has eyes in ‘s head then; I have not seen
him so pictured: you must either be directed by
some that take upon them to know, or do take upon
yourself that which I am sure you do not know, or
jump the after inquiry on your own peril: and how
you shall speed in your journey’s end, I think you’ll
never return to tell one.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to
direct them the way I am going, but such as wink and
will not use them.
First Gaoler

What an infinite mock is this, that a man should
have the best use of eyes to see the way of
blindness! I am sure hanging’s the way of winking.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger

Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the king.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Thou bring’st good news; I am called to be made free.
First Gaoler

I’ll be hang’d then.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the dead.
Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and Messenger
First Gaoler

Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young
gibbets, I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my
conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live,
for all he be a Roman: and there be some of them
too that die against their wills; so should I, if I
were one. I would we were all of one mind, and one
mind good; O, there were desolation of gaolers and
gallowses! I speak against my present profit, but
my wish hath a preferment in ‘t.
Exeunt

SCENE V. Cymbeline’s tent.

Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Lords, Officers, and Attendants
CYMBELINE

Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made
Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart
That the poor soldier that so richly fought,
Whose rags shamed gilded arms, whose naked breast
Stepp’d before larges of proof, cannot be found:
He shall be happy that can find him, if
Our grace can make him so.
BELARIUS

I never saw
Such noble fury in so poor a thing;
Such precious deeds in one that promises nought
But beggary and poor looks.
CYMBELINE

No tidings of him?
PISANIO

He hath been search’d among the dead and living,
But no trace of him.
CYMBELINE

To my grief, I am
The heir of his reward;
To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS
which I will add
To you, the liver, heart and brain of Britain,
By whom I grant she lives. ‘Tis now the time
To ask of whence you are. Report it.
BELARIUS

Sir,
In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen:
Further to boast were neither true nor modest,
Unless I add, we are honest.
CYMBELINE

Bow your knees.
Arise my knights o’ the battle: I create you
Companions to our person and will fit you
With dignities becoming your estates.
Enter CORNELIUS and Ladies
There’s business in these faces. Why so sadly
Greet you our victory? you look like Romans,
And not o’ the court of Britain.
CORNELIUS

Hail, great king!
To sour your happiness, I must report
The queen is dead.
CYMBELINE

Who worse than a physician
Would this report become? But I consider,
By medicine life may be prolong’d, yet death
Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
CORNELIUS

With horror, madly dying, like her life,
Which, being cruel to the world, concluded
Most cruel to herself. What she confess’d
I will report, so please you: these her women
Can trip me, if I err; who with wet cheeks
Were present when she finish’d.
CYMBELINE

Prithee, say.
CORNELIUS

First, she confess’d she never loved you, only
Affected greatness got by you, not you:
Married your royalty, was wife to your place;
Abhorr’d your person.
CYMBELINE

She alone knew this;
And, but she spoke it dying, I would not
Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
CORNELIUS

Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
With such integrity, she did confess
Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,
But that her flight prevented it, she had
Ta’en off by poison.
CYMBELINE

O most delicate fiend!
Who is ‘t can read a woman? Is there more?
CORNELIUS

More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had
For you a mortal mineral; which, being took,
Should by the minute feed on life and lingering
By inches waste you: in which time she purposed,
By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to
O’ercome you with her show, and in time,
When she had fitted you with her craft, to work
Her son into the adoption of the crown:
But, failing of her end by his strange absence,
Grew shameless-desperate; open’d, in despite
Of heaven and men, her purposes; repented
The evils she hatch’d were not effected; so
Despairing died.
CYMBELINE

Heard you all this, her women?
First Lady

We did, so please your highness.
CYMBELINE

Mine eyes
Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;
Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart,
That thought her like her seeming; it had
been vicious
To have mistrusted her: yet, O my daughter!
That it was folly in me, thou mayst say,
And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!
Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the Soothsayer, and other Roman Prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS LEONATUS behind, and IMOGEN
Thou comest not, Caius, now for tribute that
The Britons have razed out, though with the loss
Of many a bold one; whose kinsmen have made suit
That their good souls may be appeased with slaughter
Of you their captives, which ourself have granted:
So think of your estate.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Consider, sir, the chance of war: the day
Was yours by accident; had it gone with us,
We should not, when the blood was cool,
have threaten’d
Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives
May be call’d ransom, let it come: sufficeth
A Roman with a Roman’s heart can suffer:
Augustus lives to think on’t: and so much
For my peculiar care. This one thing only
I will entreat; my boy, a Briton born,
Let him be ransom’d: never master had
A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
So tender over his occasions, true,
So feat, so nurse-like: let his virtue join
With my request, which I make bold your highness
Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm,
Though he have served a Roman: save him, sir,
And spare no blood beside.
CYMBELINE

I have surely seen him:
His favour is familiar to me. Boy,
Thou hast look’d thyself into my grace,
And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore,
To say ‘live, boy:’ ne’er thank thy master; live:
And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,
Fitting my bounty and thy state, I’ll give it;
Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,
The noblest ta’en.
IMOGEN

I humbly thank your highness.
CAIUS LUCIUS

I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad;
And yet I know thou wilt.
IMOGEN

No, no: alack,
There’s other work in hand: I see a thing
Bitter to me as death: your life, good master,
Must shuffle for itself.
CAIUS LUCIUS

The boy disdains me,
He leaves me, scorns me: briefly die their joys
That place them on the truth of girls and boys.
Why stands he so perplex’d?
CYMBELINE

What wouldst thou, boy?
I love thee more and more: think more and more
What’s best to ask. Know’st him thou look’st on? speak,
Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?
IMOGEN

He is a Roman; no more kin to me
Than I to your highness; who, being born your vassal,
Am something nearer.
CYMBELINE

Wherefore eyest him so?
IMOGEN

I’ll tell you, sir, in private, if you please
To give me hearing.
CYMBELINE

Ay, with all my heart,
And lend my best attention. What’s thy name?
IMOGEN

Fidele, sir.
CYMBELINE

Thou’rt my good youth, my page;
I’ll be thy master: walk with me; speak freely.
CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart
BELARIUS

Is not this boy revived from death?
ARVIRAGUS

One sand another
Not more resembles that sweet rosy lad
Who died, and was Fidele. What think you?
GUIDERIUS

The same dead thing alive.
BELARIUS

Peace, peace! see further; he eyes us not; forbear;
Creatures may be alike: were ‘t he, I am sure
He would have spoke to us.
GUIDERIUS

But we saw him dead.
BELARIUS

Be silent; let’s see further.
PISANIO

[Aside] It is my mistress:
Since she is living, let the time run on
To good or bad.
CYMBELINE and IMOGEN come forward
CYMBELINE

Come, stand thou by our side;
Make thy demand aloud.
To IACHIMO
Sir, step you forth;
Give answer to this boy, and do it freely;
Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,
Which is our honour, bitter torture shall
Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him.
IMOGEN

My boon is, that this gentleman may render
Of whom he had this ring.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

[Aside] What’s that to him?
CYMBELINE

That diamond upon your finger, say
How came it yours?
IACHIMO

Thou’lt torture me to leave unspoken that
Which, to be spoke, would torture thee.
CYMBELINE

How! me?
IACHIMO

I am glad to be constrain’d to utter that
Which torments me to conceal. By villany
I got this ring: ’twas Leonatus’ jewel;
Whom thou didst banish; and–which more may
grieve thee,
As it doth me–a nobler sir ne’er lived
‘Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?
CYMBELINE

All that belongs to this.
IACHIMO

That paragon, thy daughter,–
For whom my heart drops blood, and my false spirits
Quail to remember–Give me leave; I faint.
CYMBELINE

My daughter! what of her? Renew thy strength:
I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will
Than die ere I hear more: strive, man, and speak.
IACHIMO

Upon a time,–unhappy was the clock
That struck the hour!–it was in Rome,–accursed
The mansion where!–’twas at a feast,–O, would
Our viands had been poison’d, or at least
Those which I heaved to head!–the good Posthumus–
What should I say? he was too good to be
Where ill men were; and was the best of all
Amongst the rarest of good ones,–sitting sadly,
Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
For beauty that made barren the swell’d boast
Of him that best could speak, for feature, laming
The shrine of Venus, or straight-pight Minerva.
Postures beyond brief nature, for condition,
A shop of all the qualities that man
Loves woman for, besides that hook of wiving,
Fairness which strikes the eye–
CYMBELINE

I stand on fire:
Come to the matter.
IACHIMO

All too soon I shall,
Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,
Most like a noble lord in love and one
That had a royal lover, took his hint;
And, not dispraising whom we praised,–therein
He was as calm as virtue–he began
His mistress’ picture; which by his tongue
being made,
And then a mind put in’t, either our brags
Were crack’d of kitchen-trolls, or his description
Proved us unspeaking sots.
CYMBELINE

Nay, nay, to the purpose.
IACHIMO

Your daughter’s chastity–there it begins.
He spake of her, as Dian had hot dreams,
And she alone were cold: whereat I, wretch,
Made scruple of his praise; and wager’d with him
Pieces of gold ‘gainst this which then he wore
Upon his honour’d finger, to attain
In suit the place of’s bed and win this ring
By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,
No lesser of her honour confident
Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring;
And would so, had it been a carbuncle
Of Phoebus’ wheel, and might so safely, had it
Been all the worth of’s car. Away to Britain
Post I in this design: well may you, sir,
Remember me at court; where I was taught
Of your chaste daughter the wide difference
‘Twixt amorous and villanous. Being thus quench’d
Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain
‘Gan in your duller Britain operate
Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent:
And, to be brief, my practise so prevail’d,
That I return’d with simular proof enough
To make the noble Leonatus mad,
By wounding his belief in her renown
With tokens thus, and thus; averting notes
Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet,–
O cunning, how I got it!–nay, some marks
Of secret on her person, that he could not
But think her bond of chastity quite crack’d,
I having ta’en the forfeit. Whereupon–
Methinks, I see him now–
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

[Advancing] Ay, so thou dost,
Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,
Egregious murderer, thief, any thing
That’s due to all the villains past, in being,
To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,
Some upright justicer! Thou, king, send out
For torturers ingenious: it is I
That all the abhorred things o’ the earth amend
By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,
That kill’d thy daughter:–villain-like, I lie–
That caused a lesser villain than myself,
A sacrilegious thief, to do’t: the temple
Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.
Spit, and throw stone s, cast mire upon me, set
The dogs o’ the street to bay me: every villain
Be call’d Posthumus Leonitus; and
Be villany less than ’twas! O Imogen!
My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen,
Imogen, Imogen!
IMOGEN

Peace, my lord; hear, hear–
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Shall’s have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
There lie thy part.
Striking her: she falls
PISANIO

O, gentlemen, help!
Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus!
You ne’er kill’d Imogen til now. Help, help!
Mine honour’d lady!
CYMBELINE

Does the world go round?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

How come these staggers on me?
PISANIO

Wake, my mistress!
CYMBELINE

If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me
To death with mortal joy.
PISANIO

How fares thy mistress?
IMOGEN

O, get thee from my sight;
Thou gavest me poison: dangerous fellow, hence!
Breathe not where princes are.
CYMBELINE

The tune of Imogen!
PISANIO

Lady,
The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if
That box I gave you was not thought by me
A precious thing: I had it from the queen.
CYMBELINE

New matter still?
IMOGEN

It poison’d me.
CORNELIUS

O gods!
I left out one thing which the queen confess’d.
Which must approve thee honest: ‘If Pisanio
Have,’ said she, ‘given his mistress that confection
Which I gave him for cordial, she is served
As I would serve a rat.’
CYMBELINE

What’s this, Comelius?
CORNELIUS

The queen, sir, very oft importuned me
To temper poisons for her, still pretending
The satisfaction of her knowledge only
In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,
Of no esteem: I, dreading that her purpose
Was of more danger, did compound for her
A certain stuff, which, being ta’en, would cease
The present power of life, but in short time
All offices of nature should again
Do their due functions. Have you ta’en of it?
IMOGEN

Most like I did, for I was dead.
BELARIUS

My boys,
There was our error.
GUIDERIUS

This is, sure, Fidele.
IMOGEN

Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock; and now
Throw me again.
Embracing him
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die!
CYMBELINE

How now, my flesh, my child!
What, makest thou me a dullard in this act?
Wilt thou not speak to me?
IMOGEN

[Kneeling] Your blessing, sir.
BELARIUS

[To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love
this youth, I blame ye not:
You had a motive for’t.
CYMBELINE

My tears that fall
Prove holy water on thee! Imogen,
Thy mother’s dead.
IMOGEN

I am sorry for’t, my lord.
CYMBELINE

O, she was nought; and long of her it was
That we meet here so strangely: but her son
Is gone, we know not how nor where.
PISANIO

My lord,
Now fear is from me, I’ll speak troth. Lord Cloten,
Upon my lady’s missing, came to me
With his sword drawn; foam’d at the mouth, and swore,
If I discover’d not which way she was gone,
It was my instant death. By accident,
had a feigned letter of my master’s
Then in my pocket; which directed him
To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;
Where, in a frenzy, in my master’s garments,
Which he enforced from me, away he posts
With unchaste purpose and with oath to violate
My lady’s honour: what became of him
I further know not.
GUIDERIUS

Let me end the story:
I slew him there.
CYMBELINE

Marry, the gods forfend!
I would not thy good deeds should from my lips
Pluck a bard sentence: prithee, valiant youth,
Deny’t again.
GUIDERIUS

I have spoke it, and I did it.
CYMBELINE

He was a prince.
GUIDERIUS

A most incivil one: the wrongs he did me
Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me
With language that would make me spurn the sea,
If it could so roar to me: I cut off’s head;
And am right glad he is not standing here
To tell this tale of mine.
CYMBELINE

I am sorry for thee:
By thine own tongue thou art condemn’d, and must
Endure our law: thou’rt dead.
IMOGEN

That headless man
I thought had been my lord.
CYMBELINE

Bind the offender,
And take him from our presence.
BELARIUS

Stay, sir king:
This man is better than the man he slew,
As well descended as thyself; and hath
More of thee merited than a band of Clotens
Had ever scar for.
To the Guard
Let his arms alone;
They were not born for bondage.
CYMBELINE

Why, old soldier,
Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for,
By tasting of our wrath? How of descent
As good as we?
ARVIRAGUS

In that he spake too far.
CYMBELINE

And thou shalt die for’t.
BELARIUS

We will die all three:
But I will prove that two on’s are as good
As I have given out him. My sons, I must,
For mine own part, unfold a dangerous speech,
Though, haply, well for you.
ARVIRAGUS

Your danger’s ours.
GUIDERIUS

And our good his.
BELARIUS

Have at it then, by leave.
Thou hadst, great king, a subject who
Was call’d Belarius.
CYMBELINE

What of him? he is
A banish’d traitor.
BELARIUS

He it is that hath
Assumed this age; indeed a banish’d man;
I know not how a traitor.
CYMBELINE

Take him hence:
The whole world shall not save him.
BELARIUS

Not too hot:
First pay me for the nursing of thy sons;
And let it be confiscate all, so soon
As I have received it.
CYMBELINE

Nursing of my sons!
BELARIUS

I am too blunt and saucy: here’s my knee:
Ere I arise, I will prefer my sons;
Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir,
These two young gentlemen, that call me father
And think they are my sons, are none of mine;
They are the issue of your loins, my liege,
And blood of your begetting.
CYMBELINE

How! my issue!
BELARIUS

So sure as you your father’s. I, old Morgan,
Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish’d:
Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment
Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer’d
Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes–
For such and so they are–these twenty years
Have I train’d up: those arts they have as I
Could put into them; my breeding was, sir, as
Your highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile,
Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children
Upon my banishment: I moved her to’t,
Having received the punishment before,
For that which I did then: beaten for loyalty
Excited me to treason: their dear loss,
The more of you ’twas felt, the more it shaped
Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir,
Here are your sons again; and I must lose
Two of the sweet’st companions in the world.
The benediction of these covering heavens
Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy
To inlay heaven with stars.
CYMBELINE

Thou weep’st, and speak’st.
The service that you three have done is more
Unlike than this thou tell’st. I lost my children:
If these be they, I know not how to wish
A pair of worthier sons.
BELARIUS

Be pleased awhile.
This gentleman, whom I call Polydore,
Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius:
This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus,
Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp’d
In a most curious mantle, wrought by the hand
Of his queen mother, which for more probation
I can with ease produce.
CYMBELINE

Guiderius had
Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;
It was a mark of wonder.
BELARIUS

This is he;
Who hath upon him still that natural stamp:
It was wise nature’s end in the donation,
To be his evidence now.
CYMBELINE

O, what, am I
A mother to the birth of three? Ne’er mother
Rejoiced deliverance more. Blest pray you be,
That, after this strange starting from your orbs,
may reign in them now! O Imogen,
Thou hast lost by this a kingdom.
IMOGEN

No, my lord;
I have got two worlds by ‘t. O my gentle brothers,
Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter
But I am truest speaker you call’d me brother,
When I was but your sister; I you brothers,
When ye were so indeed.
CYMBELINE

Did you e’er meet?
ARVIRAGUS

Ay, my good lord.
GUIDERIUS

And at first meeting loved;
Continued so, until we thought he died.
CORNELIUS

By the queen’s dram she swallow’d.
CYMBELINE

O rare instinct!
When shall I hear all through? This fierce
abridgement
Hath to it circumstantial branches, which
Distinction should be rich in. Where? how lived You?
And when came you to serve our Roman captive?
How parted with your brothers? how first met them?
Why fled you from the court? and whither? These,
And your three motives to the battle, with
I know not how much more, should be demanded;
And all the other by-dependencies,
From chance to chance: but nor the time nor place
Will serve our long inter’gatories. See,
Posthumus anchors upon Imogen,
And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye
On him, her brother, me, her master, hitting
Each object with a joy: the counterchange
Is severally in all. Let’s quit this ground,
And smoke the temple with our sacrifices.
To BELARIUS
Thou art my brother; so we’ll hold thee ever.
IMOGEN

You are my father too, and did relieve me,
To see this gracious season.
CYMBELINE

All o’erjoy’d,
Save these in bonds: let them be joyful too,
For they shall taste our comfort.
IMOGEN

My good master,
I will yet do you service.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Happy be you!
CYMBELINE

The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,
He would have well becomed this place, and graced
The thankings of a king.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

I am, sir,
The soldier that did company these three
In poor beseeming; ’twas a fitment for
The purpose I then follow’d. That I was he,
Speak, Iachimo: I had you down and might
Have made you finish.
IACHIMO

[Kneeling] I am down again:
But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee,
As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,
Which I so often owe: but your ring first;
And here the bracelet of the truest princess
That ever swore her faith.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Kneel not to me:
The power that I have on you is, to spare you;
The malice towards you to forgive you: live,
And deal with others better.
CYMBELINE

Nobly doom’d!
We’ll learn our freeness of a son-in-law;
Pardon’s the word to all.
ARVIRAGUS

You holp us, sir,
As you did mean indeed to be our brother;
Joy’d are we that you are.
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS

Your servant, princes. Good my lord of Rome,
Call forth your soothsayer: as I slept, methought
Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back’d,
Appear’d to me, with other spritely shows
Of mine own kindred: when I waked, I found
This label on my bosom; whose containing
Is so from sense in hardness, that I can
Make no collection of it: let him show
His skill in the construction.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Philarmonus!
Soothsayer

Here, my good lord.
CAIUS LUCIUS

Read, and declare the meaning.
Soothsayer

[Reads] ‘When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself
unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a
piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar
shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many
years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old
stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end
his miseries, Britain be fortunate and flourish in
peace and plenty.’
Thou, Leonatus, art the lion’s whelp;
The fit and apt construction of thy name,
Being Leonatus, doth import so much.
To CYMBELINE
The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,
Which we call ‘mollis aer;’ and ‘mollis aer’
We term it ‘mulier:’ which ‘mulier’ I divine
Is this most constant wife; who, even now,
Answering the letter of the oracle,
Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp’d about
With this most tender air.
CYMBELINE

This hath some seeming.
Soothsayer

The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,
Personates thee: and thy lopp’d branches point
Thy two sons forth; who, by Belarius stol’n,
For many years thought dead, are now revived,
To the majestic cedar join’d, whose issue
Promises Britain peace and plenty.
CYMBELINE

Well
My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,
Although the victor, we submit to Caesar,
And to the Roman empire; promising
To pay our wonted tribute, from the which
We were dissuaded by our wicked queen;
Whom heavens, in justice, both on her and hers,
Have laid most heavy hand.
Soothsayer

The fingers of the powers above do tune
The harmony of this peace. The vision
Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke
Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant
Is full accomplish’d; for the Roman eagle,
From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
Lessen’d herself, and in the beams o’ the sun
So vanish’d: which foreshow’d our princely eagle,
The imperial Caesar, should again unite
His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
Which shines here in the west.
CYMBELINE

Laud we the gods;
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our blest altars. Publish we this peace
To all our subjects. Set we forward: let
A Roman and a British ensign wave
Friendly together: so through Lud’s-town march:
And in the temple of great Jupiter
Our peace we’ll ratify; seal it with feasts.
Set on there! Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were wash’d, with such a peace.
Exeunt

Henry IV, part 2: Entire Play
The Second part of King Henry the Fourth

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Othello: Entire Play
Othello, the Moore of Venice

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ACT I
SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter RODERIGO and IAGO
RODERIGO

Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
IAGO

‘Sblood, but you will not hear me:
If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.
RODERIGO

Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
IAGO

Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators; for, ‘Certes,’ says he,
‘I have already chose my officer.’
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and calm’d
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I–God bless the mark!–his Moorship’s ancient.
RODERIGO

By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
IAGO

Why, there’s no remedy; ’tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,
Whether I in any just term am affined
To love the Moor.
RODERIGO

I would not follow him then.
IAGO

O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined
their coats
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
RODERIGO

What a full fortune does the thicklips owe
If he can carry’t thus!
IAGO

Call up her father,
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,
As it may lose some colour.
RODERIGO

Here is her father’s house; I’ll call aloud.
IAGO

Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.
RODERIGO

What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
IAGO

Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
Thieves! thieves!
BRABANTIO appears above, at a window
BRABANTIO

What is the reason of this terrible summons?
What is the matter there?
RODERIGO

Signior, is all your family within?
IAGO

Are your doors lock’d?
BRABANTIO

Why, wherefore ask you this?
IAGO

‘Zounds, sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on
your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.
BRABANTIO

What, have you lost your wits?
RODERIGO

Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
BRABANTIO

Not I what are you?
RODERIGO

My name is Roderigo.
BRABANTIO

The worser welcome:
I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
To start my quiet.
RODERIGO

Sir, sir, sir,–
BRABANTIO

But thou must needs be sure
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.
RODERIGO

Patience, good sir.
BRABANTIO

What tell’st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
My house is not a grange.
RODERIGO

Most grave Brabantio,
In simple and pure soul I come to you.
IAGO

‘Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to
do you service and you think we are ruffians, you’ll
have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;
you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have
coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.
BRABANTIO

What profane wretch art thou?
IAGO

I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
BRABANTIO

Thou art a villain.
IAGO

You are–a senator.
BRABANTIO

This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.
RODERIGO

Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,
If’t be your pleasure and most wise consent,
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
At this odd-even and dull watch o’ the night,
Transported, with no worse nor better guard
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor–
If this be known to you and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
But if you know not this, my manners tell me
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
That, from the sense of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:
If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.
BRABANTIO

Strike on the tinder, ho!
Give me a taper! call up all my people!
This accident is not unlike my dream:
Belief of it oppresses me already.
Light, I say! light!
Exit above
IAGO

Farewell; for I must leave you:
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
To be produced–as, if I stay, I shall–
Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
However this may gall him with some cheque,
Cannot with safety cast him, for he’s embark’d
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,
Another of his fathom they have none,
To lead their business: in which regard,
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.
Yet, for necessity of present life,
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
And there will I be with him. So, farewell.
Exit
Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches
BRABANTIO

It is too true an evil: gone she is;
And what’s to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
With the Moor, say’st thou? Who would be a father!
How didst thou know ’twas she? O she deceives me
Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers:
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?
RODERIGO

Truly, I think they are.
BRABANTIO

O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act. Is there not charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?
RODERIGO

Yes, sir, I have indeed.
BRABANTIO

Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!
Some one way, some another. Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
RODERIGO

I think I can discover him, if you please,
To get good guard and go along with me.
BRABANTIO

Pray you, lead on. At every house I’ll call;
I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
And raise some special officers of night.
On, good Roderigo: I’ll deserve your pains.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Another street.

Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches
IAGO

Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscience
To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the ribs.
OTHELLO

‘Tis better as it is.
IAGO

Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honour
That, with the little godliness I have,
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
That the magnifico is much beloved,
And hath in his effect a voice potential
As double as the duke’s: he will divorce you;
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
The law, with all his might to enforce it on,
Will give him cable.
OTHELLO

Let him do his spite:
My services which I have done the signiory
Shall out-tongue his complaints. ‘Tis yet to know,–
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate–I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege, and my demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach’d: for know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea’s worth. But, look! what lights come yond?
IAGO

Those are the raised father and his friends:
You were best go in.
OTHELLO

Not I I must be found:
My parts, my title and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?
IAGO

By Janus, I think no.
Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches
OTHELLO

The servants of the duke, and my lieutenant.
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
What is the news?
CASSIO

The duke does greet you, general,
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant.
OTHELLO

What is the matter, think you?
CASSIO

Something from Cyprus as I may divine:
It is a business of some heat: the galleys
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
This very night at one another’s heels,
And many of the consuls, raised and met,
Are at the duke’s already: you have been
hotly call’d for;
When, being not at your lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several guests
To search you out.
OTHELLO

‘Tis well I am found by you.
I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you.
Exit
CASSIO

Ancient, what makes he here?
IAGO

‘Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack:
If it prove lawful prize, he’s made for ever.
CASSIO

I do not understand.
IAGO

He’s married.
CASSIO

To who?
Re-enter OTHELLO
IAGO

Marry, to–Come, captain, will you go?
OTHELLO

Have with you.
CASSIO

Here comes another troop to seek for you.
IAGO

It is Brabantio. General, be advised;
He comes to bad intent.
Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with torches and weapons
OTHELLO

Holla! stand there!
RODERIGO

Signior, it is the Moor.
BRABANTIO

Down with him, thief!
They draw on both sides
IAGO

You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.
OTHELLO

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Good signior, you shall more command with years
Than with your weapons.
BRABANTIO

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow’d my daughter?
Damn’d as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;
For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,
So opposite to marriage that she shunned
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if ’tis not gross in sense
That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That weaken motion: I’ll have’t disputed on;
‘Tis probable and palpable to thinking.
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
For an abuser of the world, a practiser
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.
Lay hold upon him: if he do resist,
Subdue him at his peril.
OTHELLO

Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining, and the rest:
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
To answer this your charge?
BRABANTIO

To prison, till fit time
Of law and course of direct session
Call thee to answer.
OTHELLO

What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side,
Upon some present business of the state
To bring me to him?
First Officer

‘Tis true, most worthy signior;
The duke’s in council and your noble self,
I am sure, is sent for.
BRABANTIO

How! the duke in council!
In this time of the night! Bring him away:
Mine’s not an idle cause: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,
Cannot but feel this wrong as ’twere their own;
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.
Exeunt

SCENE III. A council-chamber.

The DUKE and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending
DUKE OF VENICE

There is no composition in these news
That gives them credit.
First Senator

Indeed, they are disproportion’d;
My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
DUKE OF VENICE

And mine, a hundred and forty.
Second Senator

And mine, two hundred:
But though they jump not on a just account,–
As in these cases, where the aim reports,
‘Tis oft with difference–yet do they all confirm
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
DUKE OF VENICE

Nay, it is possible enough to judgment:
I do not so secure me in the error,
But the main article I do approve
In fearful sense.
Sailor

[Within] What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!
First Officer

A messenger from the galleys.
Enter a Sailor
DUKE OF VENICE

Now, what’s the business?
Sailor

The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
So was I bid report here to the state
By Signior Angelo.
DUKE OF VENICE

How say you by this change?
First Senator

This cannot be,
By no assay of reason: ’tis a pageant,
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
And let ourselves again but understand,
That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
So may he with more facile question bear it,
For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
But altogether lacks the abilities
That Rhodes is dress’d in: if we make thought of this,
We must not think the Turk is so unskilful
To leave that latest which concerns him first,
Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
To wake and wage a danger profitless.
DUKE OF VENICE

Nay, in all confidence, he’s not for Rhodes.
First Officer

Here is more news.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger

The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes,
Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
First Senator

Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
Messenger

Of thirty sail: and now they do restem
Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
With his free duty recommends you thus,
And prays you to believe him.
DUKE OF VENICE

‘Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
First Senator

He’s now in Florence.
DUKE OF VENICE

Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch.
First Senator

Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.
Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers
DUKE OF VENICE

Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
Against the general enemy Ottoman.
To BRABANTIO
I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
We lack’d your counsel and your help tonight.
BRABANTIO

So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
Take hold on me, for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
And it is still itself.
DUKE OF VENICE

Why, what’s the matter?
BRABANTIO

My daughter! O, my daughter!
DUKE OF VENICE

Senator

Dead?
BRABANTIO

Ay, to me;
She is abused, stol’n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not.
DUKE OF VENICE

Whoe’er he be that in this foul proceeding
Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
And you of her, the bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
Stood in your action.
BRABANTIO

Humbly I thank your grace.
Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
Your special mandate for the state-affairs
Hath hither brought.
DUKE OF VENICE

Senator

We are very sorry for’t.
DUKE OF VENICE

[To OTHELLO] What, in your own part, can you say to this?
BRABANTIO

Nothing, but this is so.
OTHELLO

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter.
BRABANTIO

A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush’d at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
To fall in love with what she fear’d to look on!
It is a judgment maim’d and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
To find out practises of cunning hell,
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
That with some mixtures powerful o’er the blood,
Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
He wrought upon her.
DUKE OF VENICE

To vouch this, is no proof,
Without more wider and more overt test
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
First Senator

But, Othello, speak:
Did you by indirect and forced courses
Subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?
Or came it by request and such fair question
As soul to soul affordeth?
OTHELLO

I do beseech you,
Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
And let her speak of me before her father:
If you do find me foul in her report,
The trust, the office I do hold of you,
Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life.
DUKE OF VENICE

Fetch Desdemona hither.
OTHELLO

Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.
Exeunt IAGO and Attendants
And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
I do confess the vices of my blood,
So justly to your grave ears I’ll present
How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love,
And she in mine.
DUKE OF VENICE

Say it, Othello.
OTHELLO

Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question’d me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels’ history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak,–such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She’ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer’d. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, ’twas passing strange,
‘Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank’d me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants
DUKE OF VENICE

I think this tale would win my daughter too.
Good Brabantio,
Take up this mangled matter at the best:
Men do their broken weapons rather use
Than their bare hands.
BRABANTIO

I pray you, hear her speak:
If she confess that she was half the wooer,
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:
Do you perceive in all this noble company
Where most you owe obedience?
DESDEMONA

My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty:
To you I am bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband,
And so much duty as my mother show’d
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.
BRABANTIO

God be wi’ you! I have done.
Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs:
I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
Come hither, Moor:
I here do give thee that with all my heart
Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child:
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
DUKE OF VENICE

Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence,
Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
Into your favour.
When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preserved when fortune takes
Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
BRABANTIO

So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears,
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
DUKE OF VENICE

The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for
Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best
known to you; and though we have there a substitute
of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a
sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
voice on you: you must therefore be content to
slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this
more stubborn and boisterous expedition.
OTHELLO

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise
A natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness, and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife.
Due reference of place and exhibition,
With such accommodation and besort
As levels with her breeding.
DUKE OF VENICE

If you please,
Be’t at her father’s.
BRABANTIO

I’ll not have it so.
OTHELLO

Nor I.
DESDEMONA

Nor I; I would not there reside,
To put my father in impatient thoughts
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
And let me find a charter in your voice,
To assist my simpleness.
DUKE OF VENICE

What would You, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA

That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,
And to his honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
OTHELLO

Let her have your voices.
Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,
To please the palate of my appetite,
Nor to comply with heat–the young affects
In me defunct–and proper satisfaction.
But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
I will your serious and great business scant
For she is with me: no, when light-wing’d toys
Of feather’d Cupid seal with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instruments,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities
Make head against my estimation!
DUKE OF VENICE

Be it as you shall privately determine,
Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste,
And speed must answer it.
First Senator

You must away to-night.
OTHELLO

With all my heart.
DUKE OF VENICE

At nine i’ the morning here we’ll meet again.
Othello, leave some officer behind,
And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect
As doth import you.
OTHELLO

So please your grace, my ancient;
A man he is of honest and trust:
To his conveyance I assign my wife,
With what else needful your good grace shall think
To be sent after me.
DUKE OF VENICE

Let it be so.
Good night to every one.
To BRABANTIO
And, noble signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
First Senator

Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
BRABANTIO

Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
She has deceived her father, and may thee.
Exeunt DUKE OF VENICE, Senators, Officers, & c
OTHELLO

My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
And bring them after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.
Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA
RODERIGO

Iago,–
IAGO

What say’st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO

What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO

Why, go to bed, and sleep.
RODERIGO

I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO

If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,
thou silly gentleman!
RODERIGO

It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and
then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
IAGO

O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four
times seven years; and since I could distinguish
betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man
that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I
would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
would change my humanity with a baboon.
RODERIGO

What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so
fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
IAGO

Virtue! a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are thus
or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
distract it with many, either to have it sterile
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
you call love to be a sect or scion.
RODERIGO

It cannot be.
IAGO

It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of
the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown
cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with
cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with
an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
love to the Moor,– put money in thy purse,–nor he
his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou
shalt see an answerable sequestration:–put but
money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
their wills: fill thy purse with money:–the food
that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must
change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
she will find the error of her choice: she must
have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
to be drowned and go without her.
RODERIGO

Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on
the issue?
IAGO

Thou art sure of me:–go, make money:–I have told
thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I
hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost
thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
events in the womb of time which will be delivered.
Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
of this to-morrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO

Where shall we meet i’ the morning?
IAGO

At my lodging.
RODERIGO

I’ll be with thee betimes.
IAGO

Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO

What say you?
IAGO

No more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO

I am changed: I’ll go sell all my land.
Exit
IAGO

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe.
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
And it is thought abroad, that ‘twixt my sheets
He has done my office: I know not if’t be true;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio’s a proper man: let me see now:
To get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery–How, how? Let’s see:–
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear
That he is too familiar with his wife.
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected, framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.
Exit

ACT II
SCENE I. A Sea-port in Cyprus. An open place near the quay.

Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen
MONTANO

What from the cape can you discern at sea?
First Gentleman

Nothing at all: it is a highwrought flood;
I cannot, ‘twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
MONTANO

Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
A fuller blast ne’er shook our battlements:
If it hath ruffian’d so upon the sea,
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?
Second Gentleman

A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view
On the enchafed flood.
MONTANO

If that the Turkish fleet
Be not enshelter’d and embay’d, they are drown’d:
It is impossible they bear it out.
Enter a third Gentleman
Third Gentleman

News, lads! our wars are done.
The desperate tempest hath so bang’d the Turks,
That their designment halts: a noble ship of Venice
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance
On most part of their fleet.
MONTANO

How! is this true?
Third Gentleman

The ship is here put in,
A Veronesa; Michael Cassio,
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,
Is come on shore: the Moor himself at sea,
And is in full commission here for Cyprus.
MONTANO

I am glad on’t; ’tis a worthy governor.
Third Gentleman

But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort
Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly,
And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted
With foul and violent tempest.
MONTANO

Pray heavens he be;
For I have served him, and the man commands
Like a full soldier. Let’s to the seaside, ho!
As well to see the vessel that’s come in
As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,
Even till we make the main and the aerial blue
An indistinct regard.
Third Gentleman

Come, let’s do so:
For every minute is expectancy
Of more arrivance.
Enter CASSIO
CASSIO

Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
Give him defence against the elements,
For I have lost us him on a dangerous sea.
MONTANO

Is he well shipp’d?
CASSIO

His bark is stoutly timber’d, his pilot
Of very expert and approved allowance;
Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
Stand in bold cure.
A cry within ‘A sail, a sail, a sail!’
Enter a fourth Gentleman
CASSIO

What noise?
Fourth Gentleman

The town is empty; on the brow o’ the sea
Stand ranks of people, and they cry ‘A sail!’
CASSIO

My hopes do shape him for the governor.
Guns heard
Second Gentlemen

They do discharge their shot of courtesy:
Our friends at least.
CASSIO

I pray you, sir, go forth,
And give us truth who ’tis that is arrived.
Second Gentleman

I shall.
Exit
MONTANO

But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
CASSIO

Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And in the essential vesture of creation
Does tire the ingener.
Re-enter second Gentleman
How now! who has put in?
Second Gentleman

‘Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
CASSIO

Has had most favourable and happy speed:
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The gutter’d rocks and congregated sands–
Traitors ensteep’d to clog the guiltless keel,–
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.
MONTANO

What is she?
CASSIO

She that I spake of, our great captain’s captain,
Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts
A se’nnight’s speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
Make love’s quick pants in Desdemona’s arms,
Give renew’d fire to our extincted spirits
And bring all Cyprus comfort!
Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Attendants
O, behold,
The riches of the ship is come on shore!
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,
Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
Enwheel thee round!
DESDEMONA

I thank you, valiant Cassio.
What tidings can you tell me of my lord?
CASSIO

He is not yet arrived: nor know I aught
But that he’s well and will be shortly here.
DESDEMONA

O, but I fear–How lost you company?
CASSIO

The great contention of the sea and skies
Parted our fellowship–But, hark! a sail.
Within ‘A sail, a sail!’ Guns heard
Second Gentleman

They give their greeting to the citadel;
This likewise is a friend.
CASSIO

See for the news.
Exit Gentleman
Good ancient, you are welcome.
To EMILIA
Welcome, mistress.
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
That I extend my manners; ’tis my breeding
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.
Kissing her
IAGO

Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,
You’ll have enough.
DESDEMONA

Alas, she has no speech.
IAGO

In faith, too much;
I find it still, when I have list to sleep:
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
And chides with thinking.
EMILIA

You have little cause to say so.
IAGO

Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens,
Saints m your injuries, devils being offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives’ in your beds.
DESDEMONA

O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
IAGO

Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
You rise to play and go to bed to work.
EMILIA

You shall not write my praise.
IAGO

No, let me not.
DESDEMONA

What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
praise me?
IAGO

O gentle lady, do not put me to’t;
For I am nothing, if not critical.
DESDEMONA

Come on assay. There’s one gone to the harbour?
IAGO

Ay, madam.
DESDEMONA

I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
IAGO

I am about it; but indeed my invention
Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;
It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,
And thus she is deliver’d.
If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one’s for use, the other useth it.
DESDEMONA

Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
IAGO

If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
DESDEMONA

Worse and worse.
EMILIA

How if fair and foolish?
IAGO

She never yet was foolish that was fair;
For even her folly help’d her to an heir.
DESDEMONA

These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i’
the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for
her that’s foul and foolish?
IAGO

There’s none so foul and foolish thereunto,
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.
DESDEMONA

O heavy ignorance! thou praisest the worst best.
But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving
woman indeed, one that, in the authority of her
merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?
IAGO

She that was ever fair and never proud,
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
Never lack’d gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said ‘Now I may,’
She that being anger’d, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail;
She that could think and ne’er disclose her mind,
See suitors following and not look behind,
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,–
DESDEMONA

To do what?
IAGO

To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
DESDEMONA

O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn
of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say
you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberal
counsellor?
CASSIO

He speaks home, madam: You may relish him more in
the soldier than in the scholar.
IAGO

[Aside] He takes her by the palm: ay, well said,
whisper: with as little a web as this will I
ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon
her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship.
You say true; ’tis so, indeed: if such tricks as
these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had
been better you had not kissed your three fingers so
oft, which now again you are most apt to play the
sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent
courtesy! ’tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers
to your lips? would they were clyster-pipes for your sake!
Trumpet within
The Moor! I know his trumpet.
CASSIO

‘Tis truly so.
DESDEMONA

Let’s meet him and receive him.
CASSIO

Lo, where he comes!
Enter OTHELLO and Attendants
OTHELLO

O my fair warrior!
DESDEMONA

My dear Othello!
OTHELLO

It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus-high and duck again as low
As hell’s from heaven! If it were now to die,
‘Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
DESDEMONA

The heavens forbid
But that our loves and comforts should increase,
Even as our days do grow!
OTHELLO

Amen to that, sweet powers!
I cannot speak enough of this content;
It stops me here; it is too much of joy:
And this, and this, the greatest discords be
Kissing her
That e’er our hearts shall make!
IAGO

[Aside] O, you are well tuned now!
But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,
As honest as I am.
OTHELLO

Come, let us to the castle.
News, friends; our wars are done, the Turks
are drown’d.
How does my old acquaintance of this isle?
Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;
I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,
Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:
Bring thou the master to the citadel;
He is a good one, and his worthiness
Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,
Once more, well met at Cyprus.
Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants
IAGO

Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come
hither. If thou be’st valiant,– as, they say, base
men being in love have then a nobility in their
natures more than is native to them–list me. The
lieutenant tonight watches on the court of
guard:–first, I must tell thee this–Desdemona is
directly in love with him.
RODERIGO

With him! why, ’tis not possible.
IAGO

Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed.
Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor,
but for bragging and telling her fantastical lies:
and will she love him still for prating? let not
thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed;
and what delight shall she have to look on the
devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of
sport, there should be, again to inflame it and to
give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favour,
sympathy in years, manners and beauties; all which
the Moor is defective in: now, for want of these
required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will
find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,
disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will
instruct her in it and compel her to some second
choice. Now, sir, this granted,–as it is a most
pregnant and unforced position–who stands so
eminent in the degree of this fortune as Cassio
does? a knave very voluble; no further
conscionable than in putting on the mere form of
civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing
of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why,
none; why, none: a slipper and subtle knave, a
finder of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and
counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never
present itself; a devilish knave. Besides, the
knave is handsome, young, and hath all those
requisites in him that folly and green minds look
after: a pestilent complete knave; and the woman
hath found him already.
RODERIGO

I cannot believe that in her; she’s full of
most blessed condition.
IAGO

Blessed fig’s-end! the wine she drinks is made of
grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never
have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding! Didst thou
not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? didst
not mark that?
RODERIGO

Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.
IAGO

Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue
to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met
so near with their lips that their breaths embraced
together. Villanous thoughts, Roderigo! when these
mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes
the master and main exercise, the incorporate
conclusion, Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me: I
have brought you from Venice. Watch you to-night;
for the command, I’ll lay’t upon you. Cassio knows
you not. I’ll not be far from you: do you find
some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking
too loud, or tainting his discipline; or from what
other course you please, which the time shall more
favourably minister.
RODERIGO

Well.
IAGO

Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply
may strike at you: provoke him, that he may; for
even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus to
mutiny; whose qualification shall come into no true
taste again but by the displanting of Cassio. So
shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by
the means I shall then have to prefer them; and the
impediment most profitably removed, without the
which there were no expectation of our prosperity.
RODERIGO

I will do this, if I can bring it to any
opportunity.
IAGO

I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel:
I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.
RODERIGO

Adieu.
Exit
IAGO

That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
That she loves him, ’tis apt and of great credit:
The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife,
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb–
For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too–
Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me.
For making him egregiously an ass
And practising upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness. ‘Tis here, but yet confused:
Knavery’s plain face is never seen tin used.
Exit

SCENE II. A street.

Enter a Herald with a proclamation; People following
Herald

It is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiant
general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived,
importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,
every man put himself into triumph; some to dance,
some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and
revels his addiction leads him: for, besides these
beneficial news, it is the celebration of his
nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be
proclaimed. All offices are open, and there is full
liberty of feasting from this present hour of five
till the bell have told eleven. Heaven bless the
isle of Cyprus and our noble general Othello!
Exeunt

SCENE III. A hall in the castle.

Enter OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and Attendants
OTHELLO

Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night:
Let’s teach ourselves that honourable stop,
Not to outsport discretion.
CASSIO

Iago hath direction what to do;
But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye
Will I look to’t.
OTHELLO

Iago is most honest.
Michael, good night: to-morrow with your earliest
Let me have speech with you.
To DESDEMONA
Come, my dear love,
The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;
That profit’s yet to come ‘tween me and you.
Good night.
Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants
Enter IAGO
CASSIO

Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.
IAGO

Not this hour, lieutenant; ’tis not yet ten o’ the
clock. Our general cast us thus early for the love
of his Desdemona; who let us not therefore blame:
he hath not yet made wanton the night with her; and
she is sport for Jove.
CASSIO

She’s a most exquisite lady.
IAGO

And, I’ll warrant her, fun of game.
CASSIO

Indeed, she’s a most fresh and delicate creature.
IAGO

What an eye she has! methinks it sounds a parley of
provocation.
CASSIO

An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.
IAGO

And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?
CASSIO

She is indeed perfection.
IAGO

Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I
have a stoup of wine; and here without are a brace
of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to
the health of black Othello.
CASSIO

Not to-night, good Iago: I have very poor and
unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish
courtesy would invent some other custom of
entertainment.
IAGO

O, they are our friends; but one cup: I’ll drink for
you.
CASSIO

I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was
craftily qualified too, and, behold, what innovation
it makes here: I am unfortunate in the infirmity,
and dare not task my weakness with any more.
IAGO

What, man! ’tis a night of revels: the gallants
desire it.
CASSIO

Where are they?
IAGO

Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.
CASSIO

I’ll do’t; but it dislikes me.
Exit
IAGO

If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
With that which he hath drunk to-night already,
He’ll be as full of quarrel and offence
As my young mistress’ dog. Now, my sick fool Roderigo,
Whom love hath turn’d almost the wrong side out,
To Desdemona hath to-night caroused
Potations pottle-deep; and he’s to watch:
Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,
That hold their honours in a wary distance,
The very elements of this warlike isle,
Have I to-night fluster’d with flowing cups,
And they watch too. Now, ‘mongst this flock of drunkards,
Am I to put our Cassio in some action
That may offend the isle.–But here they come:
If consequence do but approve my dream,
My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.
Re-enter CASSIO; with him MONTANO and Gentlemen; servants following with wine
CASSIO

‘Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.
MONTANO

Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am
a soldier.
IAGO

Some wine, ho!
Sings
And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink
A soldier’s a man;
A life’s but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.
Some wine, boys!
CASSIO

‘Fore God, an excellent song.
IAGO

I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are
most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and
your swag-bellied Hollander–Drink, ho!–are nothing
to your English.
CASSIO

Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?
IAGO

Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead
drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he
gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle
can be filled.
CASSIO

To the health of our general!
MONTANO

I am for it, lieutenant; and I’ll do you justice.
IAGO

O sweet England!
King Stephen was a worthy peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown;
He held them sixpence all too dear,
With that he call’d the tailor lown.
He was a wight of high renown,
And thou art but of low degree:
‘Tis pride that pulls the country down;
Then take thine auld cloak about thee.
Some wine, ho!
CASSIO

Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.
IAGO

Will you hear’t again?
CASSIO

No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that
does those things. Well, God’s above all; and there
be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.
IAGO

It’s true, good lieutenant.
CASSIO

For mine own part,–no offence to the general, nor
any man of quality,–I hope to be saved.
IAGO

And so do I too, lieutenant.
CASSIO

Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the
lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let’s
have no more of this; let’s to our affairs.–Forgive
us our sins!–Gentlemen, let’s look to our business.
Do not think, gentlemen. I am drunk: this is my
ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my left:
I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough, and
speak well enough.
All

Excellent well.
CASSIO

Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am drunk.
Exit
MONTANO

To the platform, masters; come, let’s set the watch.
IAGO

You see this fellow that is gone before;
He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
And give direction: and do but see his vice;
‘Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
The one as long as the other: ’tis pity of him.
I fear the trust Othello puts him in.
On some odd time of his infirmity,
Will shake this island.
MONTANO

But is he often thus?
IAGO

‘Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep:
He’ll watch the horologe a double set,
If drink rock not his cradle.
MONTANO

It were well
The general were put in mind of it.
Perhaps he sees it not; or his good nature
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio,
And looks not on his evils: is not this true?
Enter RODERIGO
IAGO

[Aside to him] How now, Roderigo!
I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.
Exit RODERIGO
MONTANO

And ’tis great pity that the noble Moor
Should hazard such a place as his own second
With one of an ingraft infirmity:
It were an honest action to say
So to the Moor.
IAGO

Not I, for this fair island:
I do love Cassio well; and would do much
To cure him of this evil–But, hark! what noise?
Cry within: ‘Help! help!’
Re-enter CASSIO, driving in RODERIGO
CASSIO

You rogue! you rascal!
MONTANO

What’s the matter, lieutenant?
CASSIO

A knave teach me my duty!
I’ll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle.
RODERIGO

Beat me!
CASSIO

Dost thou prate, rogue?
Striking RODERIGO
MONTANO

Nay, good lieutenant;
Staying him
I pray you, sir, hold your hand.
CASSIO

Let me go, sir,
Or I’ll knock you o’er the mazzard.
MONTANO

Come, come,
you’re drunk.
CASSIO

Drunk!
They fight
IAGO

[Aside to RODERIGO] Away, I say; go out, and cry a mutiny.
Exit RODERIGO
Nay, good lieutenant,–alas, gentlemen;–
Help, ho!–Lieutenant,–sir,–Montano,–sir;
Help, masters!–Here’s a goodly watch indeed!
Bell rings
Who’s that which rings the bell?–Diablo, ho!
The town will rise: God’s will, lieutenant, hold!
You will be shamed for ever.
Re-enter OTHELLO and Attendants
OTHELLO

What is the matter here?
MONTANO

‘Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.
Faints
OTHELLO

Hold, for your lives!
IAGO

Hold, ho! Lieutenant,–sir–Montano,–gentlemen,–
Have you forgot all sense of place and duty?
Hold! the general speaks to you; hold, hold, for shame!
OTHELLO

Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?
Are we turn’d Turks, and to ourselves do that
Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl:
He that stirs next to carve for his own rage
Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle
From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?
Honest Iago, that look’st dead with grieving,
Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge thee.
IAGO

I do not know: friends all but now, even now,
In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom
Devesting them for bed; and then, but now–
As if some planet had unwitted men–
Swords out, and tilting one at other’s breast,
In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
Any beginning to this peevish odds;
And would in action glorious I had lost
Those legs that brought me to a part of it!
OTHELLO

How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
CASSIO

I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.
OTHELLO

Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;
The gravity and stillness of your youth
The world hath noted, and your name is great
In mouths of wisest censure: what’s the matter,
That you unlace your reputation thus
And spend your rich opinion for the name
Of a night-brawler? give me answer to it.
MONTANO

Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:
Your officer, Iago, can inform you,–
While I spare speech, which something now
offends me,–
Of all that I do know: nor know I aught
By me that’s said or done amiss this night;
Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
And to defend ourselves it be a sin
When violence assails us.
OTHELLO

Now, by heaven,
My blood begins my safer guides to rule;
And passion, having my best judgment collied,
Assays to lead the way: if I once stir,
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
How this foul rout began, who set it on;
And he that is approved in this offence,
Though he had twinn’d with me, both at a birth,
Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,
Yet wild, the people’s hearts brimful of fear,
To manage private and domestic quarrel,
In night, and on the court and guard of safety!
‘Tis monstrous. Iago, who began’t?
MONTANO

If partially affined, or leagued in office,
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,
Thou art no soldier.
IAGO

Touch me not so near:
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
Montano and myself being in speech,
There comes a fellow crying out for help:
And Cassio following him with determined sword,
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause:
Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
Lest by his clamour–as it so fell out–
The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,
Outran my purpose; and I return’d the rather
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
And Cassio high in oath; which till to-night
I ne’er might say before. When I came back–
For this was brief–I found them close together,
At blow and thrust; even as again they were
When you yourself did part them.
More of this matter cannot I report:
But men are men; the best sometimes forget:
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
From him that fled some strange indignity,
Which patience could not pass.
OTHELLO

I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee
But never more be officer of mine.
Re-enter DESDEMONA, attended
Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!
I’ll make thee an example.
DESDEMONA

What’s the matter?
OTHELLO

All’s well now, sweeting; come away to bed.
Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon:
Lead him off.
To MONTANO, who is led off
Iago, look with care about the town,
And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
Come, Desdemona: ’tis the soldiers’ life
To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
Exeunt all but IAGO and CASSIO
IAGO

What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
CASSIO

Ay, past all surgery.
IAGO

Marry, heaven forbid!
CASSIO

Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!
IAGO

As I am an honest man, I thought you had received
some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than
in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false
imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without
deserving: you have lost no reputation at all,
unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man!
there are ways to recover the general again: you
are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in
policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his
offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue
to him again, and he’s yours.
CASSIO

I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so
good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so
indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot?
and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse
fustian with one’s own shadow? O thou invisible
spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,
let us call thee devil!
IAGO

What was he that you followed with your sword? What
had he done to you?
CASSIO

I know not.
IAGO

Is’t possible?
CASSIO

I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;
a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away
their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance
revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
IAGO

Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus
recovered?
CASSIO

It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place
to the devil wrath; one unperfectness shows me
another, to make me frankly despise myself.
IAGO

Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time,
the place, and the condition of this country
stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen;
but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.
CASSIO

I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me
I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,
such an answer would stop them all. To be now a
sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a
beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is
unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.
IAGO

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,
if it be well used: exclaim no more against it.
And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love you.
CASSIO

I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
IAGO

You or any man living may be drunk! at a time, man.
I’ll tell you what you shall do. Our general’s wife
is now the general: may say so in this respect, for
that he hath devoted and given up himself to the
contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and
graces: confess yourself freely to her; importune
her help to put you in your place again: she is of
so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition,
she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more
than she is requested: this broken joint between
you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my
fortunes against any lay worth naming, this
crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.
CASSIO

You advise me well.
IAGO

I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.
CASSIO

I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will
beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me:
I am desperate of my fortunes if they cheque me here.
IAGO

You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I
must to the watch.
CASSIO: Good night, honest Iago.
Exit
IAGO

And what’s he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy
The inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit: she’s framed as fruitful
As the free elements. And then for her
To win the Moor–were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter’d to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function. How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
As I do now: for whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body’s lust;
And by how much she strives to do him good,
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
And out of her own goodness make the net
That shall enmesh them all.
Re-enter RODERIGO
How now, Roderigo!
RODERIGO

I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that
hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is
almost spent; I have been to-night exceedingly well
cudgelled; and I think the issue will be, I shall
have so much experience for my pains, and so, with
no money at all and a little more wit, return again to Venice.
IAGO

How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know’st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time.
Does’t not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee.
And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier’d Cassio:
Though other things grow fair against the sun,
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe:
Content thyself awhile. By the mass, ’tis morning;
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
Retire thee; go where thou art billeted:
Away, I say; thou shalt know more hereafter:
Nay, get thee gone.
Exit RODERIGO
Two things are to be done:
My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;
I’ll set her on;
Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,
And bring him jump when he may Cassio find
Soliciting his wife: ay, that’s the way
Dull not device by coldness and delay.
Exit

ACT III
SCENE I. Before the castle.

Enter CASSIO and some Musicians
CASSIO

Masters, play here; I will content your pains;
Something that’s brief; and bid ‘Good morrow, general.’
Music
Enter Clown
Clown

Why masters, have your instruments been in Naples,
that they speak i’ the nose thus?
First Musician

How, sir, how!
Clown

Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments?
First Musician

Ay, marry, are they, sir.
Clown

O, thereby hangs a tail.
First Musician

Whereby hangs a tale, sir?
Clown

Marry. sir, by many a wind-instrument that I know.
But, masters, here’s money for you: and the general
so likes your music, that he desires you, for love’s
sake, to make no more noise with it.
First Musician

Well, sir, we will not.
Clown

If you have any music that may not be heard, to’t
again: but, as they say to hear music the general
does not greatly care.
First Musician

We have none such, sir.
Clown

Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away:
go; vanish into air; away!
Exeunt Musicians
CASSIO

Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
Clown

No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.
CASSIO

Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There’s a poor piece
of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that attends
the general’s wife be stirring, tell her there’s
one Cassio entreats her a little favour of speech:
wilt thou do this?
Clown

She is stirring, sir: if she will stir hither, I
shall seem to notify unto her.
CASSIO

Do, good my friend.
Exit Clown
Enter IAGO
In happy time, Iago.
IAGO

You have not been a-bed, then?
CASSIO

Why, no; the day had broke
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
To send in to your wife: my suit to her
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona
Procure me some access.
IAGO

I’ll send her to you presently;
And I’ll devise a mean to draw the Moor
Out of the way, that your converse and business
May be more free.
CASSIO

I humbly thank you for’t.
Exit IAGO
I never knew
A Florentine more kind and honest.
Enter EMILIA
EMILIA

Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry
For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.
The general and his wife are talking of it;
And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom
He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
And needs no other suitor but his likings
To take the safest occasion by the front
To bring you in again.
CASSIO

Yet, I beseech you,
If you think fit, or that it may be done,
Give me advantage of some brief discourse
With Desdemona alone.
EMILIA

Pray you, come in;
I will bestow you where you shall have time
To speak your bosom freely.
CASSIO

I am much bound to you.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Gentlemen
OTHELLO

These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;
And by him do my duties to the senate:
That done, I will be walking on the works;
Repair there to me.
IAGO

Well, my good lord, I’ll do’t.
OTHELLO

This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t?
Gentleman

We’ll wait upon your lordship.
Exeunt

SCENE III. The garden of the castle.

Enter DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and EMILIA
DESDEMONA

Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
All my abilities in thy behalf.
EMILIA

Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,
As if the case were his.
DESDEMONA

O, that’s an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
But I will have my lord and you again
As friendly as you were.
CASSIO

Bounteous madam,
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
He’s never any thing but your true servant.
DESDEMONA

I know’t; I thank you. You do love my lord:
You have known him long; and be you well assured
He shall in strangeness stand no further off
Than in a polite distance.
CASSIO

Ay, but, lady,
That policy may either last so long,
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
Or breed itself so out of circumstance,
That, I being absent and my place supplied,
My general will forget my love and service.
DESDEMONA

Do not doubt that; before Emilia here
I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,
If I do vow a friendship, I’ll perform it
To the last article: my lord shall never rest;
I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I’ll intermingle every thing he does
With Cassio’s suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;
For thy solicitor shall rather die
Than give thy cause away.
EMILIA

Madam, here comes my lord.
CASSIO

Madam, I’ll take my leave.
DESDEMONA

Why, stay, and hear me speak.
CASSIO

Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,
Unfit for mine own purposes.
DESDEMONA

Well, do your discretion.
Exit CASSIO
Enter OTHELLO and IAGO
IAGO

Ha! I like not that.
OTHELLO

What dost thou say?
IAGO

Nothing, my lord: or if–I know not what.
OTHELLO

Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
IAGO

Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
That he would steal away so guilty-like,
Seeing you coming.
OTHELLO

I do believe ’twas he.
DESDEMONA

How now, my lord!
I have been talking with a suitor here,
A man that languishes in your displeasure.
OTHELLO

Who is’t you mean?
DESDEMONA

Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
If I have any grace or power to move you,
His present reconciliation take;
For if he be not one that truly loves you,
That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
I have no judgment in an honest face:
I prithee, call him back.
OTHELLO

Went he hence now?
DESDEMONA

Ay, sooth; so humbled
That he hath left part of his grief with me,
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
OTHELLO

Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
DESDEMONA

But shall’t be shortly?
OTHELLO

The sooner, sweet, for you.
DESDEMONA

Shall’t be to-night at supper?
OTHELLO

No, not to-night.
DESDEMONA

To-morrow dinner, then?
OTHELLO

I shall not dine at home;
I meet the captains at the citadel.
DESDEMONA

Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days: in faith, he’s penitent;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason–
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
Out of their best–is not almost a fault
To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,
What you would ask me, that I should deny,
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
Hath ta’en your part; to have so much to do
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,–
OTHELLO

Prithee, no more: let him come when he will;
I will deny thee nothing.
DESDEMONA

Why, this is not a boon;
‘Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight
And fearful to be granted.
OTHELLO

I will deny thee nothing:
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
To leave me but a little to myself.
DESDEMONA

Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.
OTHELLO

Farewell, my Desdemona: I’ll come to thee straight.
DESDEMONA

Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
Whate’er you be, I am obedient.
Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA
OTHELLO

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
IAGO

My noble lord–
OTHELLO

What dost thou say, Iago?
IAGO

Did Michael Cassio, when you woo’d my lady,
Know of your love?
OTHELLO

He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?
IAGO

But for a satisfaction of my thought;
No further harm.
OTHELLO

Why of thy thought, Iago?
IAGO

I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
OTHELLO

O, yes; and went between us very oft.
IAGO

Indeed!
OTHELLO

Indeed! ay, indeed: discern’st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest?
IAGO

Honest, my lord!
OTHELLO

Honest! ay, honest.
IAGO

My lord, for aught I know.
OTHELLO

What dost thou think?
IAGO

Think, my lord!
OTHELLO

Think, my lord!
By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?
And when I told thee he was of my counsel
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst ‘Indeed!’
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
Show me thy thought.
IAGO

My lord, you know I love you.
OTHELLO

I think thou dost;
And, for I know thou’rt full of love and honesty,
And weigh’st thy words before thou givest them breath,
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:
For such things in a false disloyal knave
Are tricks of custom, but in a man that’s just
They are close delations, working from the heart
That passion cannot rule.
IAGO

For Michael Cassio,
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
OTHELLO

I think so too.
IAGO

Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
OTHELLO

Certain, men should be what they seem.
IAGO

Why, then, I think Cassio’s an honest man.
OTHELLO

Nay, yet there’s more in this:
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
IAGO

Good my lord, pardon me:
Though I am bound to every act of duty,
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
As where’s that palace whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days and in session sit
With meditations lawful?
OTHELLO

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think’st him wrong’d and makest his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
IAGO

I do beseech you–
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature’s plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not–that your wisdom yet,
From one that so imperfectly conceits,
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
OTHELLO

What dost thou mean?
IAGO

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
OTHELLO

By heaven, I’ll know thy thoughts.
IAGO

You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
Nor shall not, whilst ’tis in my custody.
OTHELLO

Ha!
IAGO

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
OTHELLO

O misery!
IAGO

Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!
OTHELLO

Why, why is this?
Think’st thou I’ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. ‘Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I’ll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,–
Away at once with love or jealousy!
IAGO

I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to’t:
I know our country disposition well;
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave’t undone, but keep’t unknown.
OTHELLO

Dost thou say so?
IAGO

She did deceive her father, marrying you;
And when she seem’d to shake and fear your looks,
She loved them most.
OTHELLO

And so she did.
IAGO

Why, go to then;
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To seal her father’s eyes up close as oak-
He thought ’twas witchcraft–but I am much to blame;
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
For too much loving you.
OTHELLO

I am bound to thee for ever.
IAGO

I see this hath a little dash’d your spirits.
OTHELLO

Not a jot, not a jot.
IAGO

I’ faith, I fear it has.
I hope you will consider what is spoke
Comes from my love. But I do see you’re moved:
I am to pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.
OTHELLO

I will not.
IAGO

Should you do so, my lord,
My speech should fall into such vile success
As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio’s my worthy friend–
My lord, I see you’re moved.
OTHELLO

No, not much moved:
I do not think but Desdemona’s honest.
IAGO

Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
OTHELLO

And yet, how nature erring from itself,–
IAGO

Ay, there’s the point: as–to be bold with you–
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends–
Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.
But pardon me; I do not in position
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
May fall to match you with her country forms
And happily repent.
OTHELLO

Farewell, farewell:
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago:
IAGO

[Going] My lord, I take my leave.
OTHELLO

Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
IAGO

[Returning] My lord, I would I might entreat
your honour
To scan this thing no further; leave it to time:
Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
For sure, he fills it up with great ability,
Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,
You shall by that perceive him and his means:
Note, if your lady strain his entertainment
With any strong or vehement importunity;
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time,
Let me be thought too busy in my fears–
As worthy cause I have to fear I am–
And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.
OTHELLO

Fear not my government.
IAGO

I once more take my leave.
Exit
OTHELLO

This fellow’s of exceeding honesty,
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
I’ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,
To pray at fortune. Haply, for I am black
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have, or for I am declined
Into the vale of years,–yet that’s not much–
She’s gone. I am abused; and my relief
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses. Yet, ’tis the plague of great ones;
Prerogatived are they less than the base;
‘Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:
Even then this forked plague is fated to us
When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:
Re-enter DESDEMONA and EMILIA
If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
I’ll not believe’t.
DESDEMONA

How now, my dear Othello!
Your dinner, and the generous islanders
By you invited, do attend your presence.
OTHELLO

I am to blame.
DESDEMONA

Why do you speak so faintly?
Are you not well?
OTHELLO

I have a pain upon my forehead here.
DESDEMONA

‘Faith, that’s with watching; ’twill away again:
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
It will be well.
OTHELLO

Your napkin is too little:
He puts the handkerchief from him; and it drops
Let it alone. Come, I’ll go in with you.
DESDEMONA

I am very sorry that you are not well.
Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA
EMILIA

I am glad I have found this napkin:
This was her first remembrance from the Moor:
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Woo’d me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I’ll have the work ta’en out,
And give’t Iago: what he will do with it
Heaven knows, not I;
I nothing but to please his fantasy.
Re-enter Iago
IAGO

How now! what do you here alone?
EMILIA

Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
IAGO

A thing for me? it is a common thing–
EMILIA

Ha!
IAGO

To have a foolish wife.
EMILIA

O, is that all? What will you give me now
For the same handkerchief?
IAGO

What handkerchief?
EMILIA

What handkerchief?
Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;
That which so often you did bid me steal.
IAGO

Hast stol’n it from her?
EMILIA

No, ‘faith; she let it drop by negligence.
And, to the advantage, I, being here, took’t up.
Look, here it is.
IAGO

A good wench; give it me.
EMILIA

What will you do with ‘t, that you have been
so earnest
To have me filch it?
IAGO

[Snatching it] Why, what’s that to you?
EMILIA

If it be not for some purpose of import,
Give’t me again: poor lady, she’ll run mad
When she shall lack it.
IAGO

Be not acknown on ‘t; I have use for it.
Go, leave me.
Exit EMILIA
I will in Cassio’s lodging lose this napkin,
And let him find it. Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ: this may do something.
The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood.
Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:
Look, where he comes!
Re-enter OTHELLO
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
OTHELLO

Ha! ha! false to me?
IAGO

Why, how now, general! no more of that.
OTHELLO

Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
I swear ’tis better to be much abused
Than but to know’t a little.
IAGO

How now, my lord!
OTHELLO

What sense had I of her stol’n hours of lust?
I saw’t not, thought it not, it harm’d not me:
I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
I found not Cassio’s kisses on her lips:
He that is robb’d, not wanting what is stol’n,
Let him not know’t, and he’s not robb’d at all.
IAGO

I am sorry to hear this.
OTHELLO

I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove’s dead clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!
IAGO

Is’t possible, my lord?
OTHELLO

Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:
Or by the worth of man’s eternal soul,
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
Than answer my waked wrath!
IAGO

Is’t come to this?
OTHELLO

Make me to see’t; or, at the least, so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
IAGO

My noble lord,–
OTHELLO

If thou dost slander her and torture me,
Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
On horror’s head horrors accumulate;
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
IAGO

O grace! O heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
God be wi’ you; take mine office. O wretched fool.
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
I thank you for this profit; and from hence
I’ll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence.
OTHELLO

Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.
IAGO

I should be wise, for honesty’s a fool
And loses that it works for.
OTHELLO

By the world,
I think my wife be honest and think she is not;
I think that thou art just and think thou art not.
I’ll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I’ll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
IAGO

I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied?
OTHELLO

Would! nay, I will.
IAGO

And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on–
Behold her topp’d?
OTHELLO

Death and damnation! O!
IAGO

It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring them to that prospect: damn them then,
If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where’s satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this,
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
If imputation and strong circumstances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,
Will give you satisfaction, you may have’t.
OTHELLO

Give me a living reason she’s disloyal.
IAGO

I do not like the office:
But, sith I am enter’d in this cause so far,
Prick’d to’t by foolish honesty and love,
I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
One of this kind is Cassio:
In sleep I heard him say ‘Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;’
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
Cry ‘O sweet creature!’ and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck’d up kisses by the roots
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
Over my thigh, and sigh’d, and kiss’d; and then
Cried ‘Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!’
OTHELLO

O monstrous! monstrous!
IAGO

Nay, this was but his dream.
OTHELLO

But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
‘Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
IAGO

And this may help to thicken other proofs
That do demonstrate thinly.
OTHELLO

I’ll tear her all to pieces.
IAGO

Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,
Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
Spotted with strawberries in your wife’s hand?
OTHELLO

I gave her such a one; ’twas my first gift.
IAGO

I know not that; but such a handkerchief–
I am sure it was your wife’s–did I to-day
See Cassio wipe his beard with.
OTHELLO

If it be that–
IAGO

If it be that, or any that was hers,
It speaks against her with the other proofs.
OTHELLO

O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
Now do I see ’tis true. Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
‘Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For ’tis of aspics’ tongues!
IAGO

Yet be content.
OTHELLO

O, blood, blood, blood!
IAGO

Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
OTHELLO

Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,
Kneels
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
IAGO

Do not rise yet.
Kneels
Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
You elements that clip us round about,
Witness that here Iago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
To wrong’d Othello’s service! Let him command,
And to obey shall be in me remorse,
What bloody business ever.
They rise
OTHELLO

I greet thy love,
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
And will upon the instant put thee to’t:
Within these three days let me hear thee say
That Cassio’s not alive.
IAGO

My friend is dead; ’tis done at your request:
But let her live.
OTHELLO

Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
IAGO

I am your own for ever.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Before the castle.

Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, and Clown
DESDEMONA

Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
Clown

I dare not say he lies any where.
DESDEMONA

Why, man?
Clown

He’s a soldier, and for one to say a soldier lies,
is stabbing.
DESDEMONA

Go to: where lodges he?
Clown

To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.
DESDEMONA

Can any thing be made of this?
Clown

I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a
lodging and say he lies here or he lies there, were
to lie in mine own throat.
DESDEMONA

Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?
Clown

I will catechise the world for him; that is, make
questions, and by them answer.
DESDEMONA

Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have
moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.
Clown

To do this is within the compass of man’s wit: and
therefore I will attempt the doing it.
Exit
DESDEMONA

Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
EMILIA

I know not, madam.
DESDEMONA

Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
As jealous creatures are, it were enough
To put him to ill thinking.
EMILIA

Is he not jealous?
DESDEMONA

Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
Drew all such humours from him.
EMILIA

Look, where he comes.
DESDEMONA

I will not leave him now till Cassio
Be call’d to him.
Enter OTHELLO
How is’t with you, my lord
OTHELLO

Well, my good lady.
Aside
O, hardness to dissemble!–
How do you, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA

Well, my good lord.
OTHELLO

Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
DESDEMONA

It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
OTHELLO

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout;
For here’s a young and sweating devil here,
That commonly rebels. ‘Tis a good hand,
A frank one.
DESDEMONA

You may, indeed, say so;
For ’twas that hand that gave away my heart.
OTHELLO

A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
DESDEMONA

I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
OTHELLO

What promise, chuck?
DESDEMONA

I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
OTHELLO

I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESDEMONA

Here, my lord.
OTHELLO

That which I gave you.
DESDEMONA

I have it not about me.
OTHELLO

Not?
DESDEMONA

No, indeed, my lord.
OTHELLO

That is a fault.
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while
she kept it,
‘Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father’s eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on’t;
Make it a darling like your precious eye;
To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.
DESDEMONA

Is’t possible?
OTHELLO

‘Tis true: there’s magic in the web of it:
A sibyl, that had number’d in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work;
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.
DESDEMONA

Indeed! is’t true?
OTHELLO

Most veritable; therefore look to’t well.
DESDEMONA

Then would to God that I had never seen’t!
OTHELLO

Ha! wherefore?
DESDEMONA

Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
OTHELLO

Is’t lost? is’t gone? speak, is it out
o’ the way?
DESDEMONA

Heaven bless us!
OTHELLO

Say you?
DESDEMONA

It is not lost; but what an if it were?
OTHELLO

How!
DESDEMONA

I say, it is not lost.
OTHELLO

Fetch’t, let me see’t.
DESDEMONA

Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
This is a trick to put me from my suit:
Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
OTHELLO

Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.
DESDEMONA

Come, come;
You’ll never meet a more sufficient man.
OTHELLO

The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA

I pray, talk me of Cassio.
OTHELLO

The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA

A man that all his time
Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
Shared dangers with you,–
OTHELLO

The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA

In sooth, you are to blame.
OTHELLO

Away!
Exit
EMILIA

Is not this man jealous?
DESDEMONA

I ne’er saw this before.
Sure, there’s some wonder in this handkerchief:
I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
EMILIA

‘Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;
To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband!
Enter CASSIO and IAGO
IAGO

There is no other way; ’tis she must do’t:
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her.
DESDEMONA

How now, good Cassio! what’s the news with you?
CASSIO

Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
That by your virtuous means I may again
Exist, and be a member of his love
Whom I with all the office of my heart
Entirely honour: I would not be delay’d.
If my offence be of such mortal kind
That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,
Nor purposed merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
And shut myself up in some other course,
To fortune’s alms.
DESDEMONA

Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
My advocation is not now in tune;
My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,
Were he in favour as in humour alter’d.
So help me every spirit sanctified,
As I have spoken for you all my best
And stood within the blank of his displeasure
For my free speech! you must awhile be patient:
What I can do I will; and more I will
Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
IAGO

Is my lord angry?
EMILIA

He went hence but now,
And certainly in strange unquietness.
IAGO

Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
When it hath blown his ranks into the air,
And, like the devil, from his very arm
Puff’d his own brother:–and can he be angry?
Something of moment then: I will go meet him:
There’s matter in’t indeed, if he be angry.
DESDEMONA

I prithee, do so.
Exit IAGO
Something, sure, of state,
Either from Venice, or some unhatch’d practise
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such cases
Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object. ‘Tis even so;
For let our finger ache, and it indues
Our other healthful members even to that sense
Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,
Nor of them look for such observances
As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find I had suborn’d the witness,
And he’s indicted falsely.
EMILIA

Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you think,
And no conception nor no jealous toy
Concerning you.
DESDEMONA

Alas the day! I never gave him cause.
EMILIA

But jealous souls will not be answer’d so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous: ’tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
DESDEMONA

Heaven keep that monster from Othello’s mind!
EMILIA

Lady, amen.
DESDEMONA

I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout:
If I do find him fit, I’ll move your suit
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
CASSIO

I humbly thank your ladyship.
Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA
Enter BIANCA
BIANCA

Save you, friend Cassio!
CASSIO

What make you from home?
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
I’ faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
BIANCA

And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O weary reckoning!
CASSIO

Pardon me, Bianca:
I have this while with leaden thoughts been press’d:
But I shall, in a more continuate time,
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
Giving her DESDEMONA’s handkerchief
Take me this work out.
BIANCA

O Cassio, whence came this?
This is some token from a newer friend:
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is’t come to this? Well, well.
CASSIO

Go to, woman!
Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth,
From whence you have them. You are jealous now
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
No, in good troth, Bianca.
BIANCA

Why, whose is it?
CASSIO

I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.
I like the work well: ere it be demanded–
As like enough it will–I’ld have it copied:
Take it, and do’t; and leave me for this time.
BIANCA

Leave you! wherefore?
CASSIO

I do attend here on the general;
And think it no addition, nor my wish,
To have him see me woman’d.
BIANCA

Why, I pray you?
CASSIO

Not that I love you not.
BIANCA

But that you do not love me.
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
And say if I shall see you soon at night.
CASSIO

‘Tis but a little way that I can bring you;
For I attend here: but I’ll see you soon.
BIANCA

‘Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.
Exeunt

ACT IV
SCENE I. Cyprus. Before the castle.

Enter OTHELLO and IAGO
IAGO

Will you think so?
OTHELLO

Think so, Iago!
IAGO

What,
To kiss in private?
OTHELLO

An unauthorized kiss.
IAGO

Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
OTHELLO

Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.
IAGO

So they do nothing, ’tis a venial slip:
But if I give my wife a handkerchief,–
OTHELLO

What then?
IAGO

Why, then, ’tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,
She may, I think, bestow’t on any man.
OTHELLO

She is protectress of her honour too:
May she give that?
IAGO

Her honour is an essence that’s not seen;
They have it very oft that have it not:
But, for the handkerchief,–
OTHELLO

By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
Thou said’st, it comes o’er my memory,
As doth the raven o’er the infected house,
Boding to all–he had my handkerchief.
IAGO

Ay, what of that?
OTHELLO

That’s not so good now.
IAGO

What,
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
Or heard him say,–as knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab–
OTHELLO

Hath he said any thing?
IAGO

He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
No more than he’ll unswear.
OTHELLO

What hath he said?
IAGO

‘Faith, that he did–I know not what he did.
OTHELLO

What? what?
IAGO

Lie–
OTHELLO

With her?
IAGO

With her, on her; what you will.
OTHELLO

Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
they belie her. Lie with her! that’s fulsome.
–Handkerchief–confessions–handkerchief!–To
confess, and be hanged for his labour;–first, to be
hanged, and then to confess.–I tremble at it.
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
–Is’t possible?–Confess–handkerchief!–O devil!–
Falls in a trance
IAGO

Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
Enter CASSIO
How now, Cassio!
CASSIO

What’s the matter?
IAGO

My lord is fall’n into an epilepsy:
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
CASSIO

Rub him about the temples.
IAGO

No, forbear;
The lethargy must have his quiet course:
If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight: when he is gone,
I would on great occasion speak with you.
Exit CASSIO
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?
OTHELLO

Dost thou mock me?
IAGO

I mock you! no, by heaven.
Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
OTHELLO

A horned man’s a monster and a beast.
IAGO

There’s many a beast then in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.
OTHELLO

Did he confess it?
IAGO

Good sir, be a man;
Think every bearded fellow that’s but yoked
May draw with you: there’s millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O, ’tis the spite of hell, the fiend’s arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
OTHELLO

O, thou art wise; ’tis certain.
IAGO

Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o’erwhelmed with your grief–
A passion most unsuiting such a man–
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good ‘scuse upon your ecstasy,
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.
OTHELLO

Dost thou hear, Iago?
I will be found most cunning in my patience;
But–dost thou hear?–most bloody.
IAGO

That’s not amiss;
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
OTHELLO retires
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as ’tis the strumpet’s plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one:
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:
Re-enter CASSIO
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
And his unbookish jealousy must construe
Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures and light behavior,
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
CASSIO

The worser that you give me the addition
Whose want even kills me.
IAGO

Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on’t.
Speaking lower
Now, if this suit lay in Bianco’s power,
How quickly should you speed!
CASSIO

Alas, poor caitiff!
OTHELLO

Look, how he laughs already!
IAGO

I never knew woman love man so.
CASSIO

Alas, poor rogue! I think, i’ faith, she loves me.
OTHELLO

Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.
IAGO

Do you hear, Cassio?
OTHELLO

Now he importunes him
To tell it o’er: go to; well said, well said.
IAGO

She gives it out that you shall marry hey:
Do you intend it?
CASSIO

Ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO

Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?
CASSIO

I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some
charity to my wit: do not think it so unwholesome.
Ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO

So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.
IAGO

‘Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
CASSIO

Prithee, say true.
IAGO

I am a very villain else.
OTHELLO

Have you scored me? Well.
CASSIO

This is the monkey’s own giving out: she is
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
flattery, not out of my promise.
OTHELLO

Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
CASSIO

She was here even now; she haunts me in every place.
I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with
certain Venetians; and thither comes the bauble,
and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck–
OTHELLO

Crying ‘O dear Cassio!’ as it were: his gesture
imports it.
CASSIO

So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales,
and pulls me: ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO

Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O,
I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall
throw it to.
CASSIO

Well, I must leave her company.
IAGO

Before me! look, where she comes.
CASSIO

‘Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.
Enter BIANCA
What do you mean by this haunting of me?
BIANCA

Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you
mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now?
I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the
work?–A likely piece of work, that you should find
it in your chamber, and not know who left it there!
This is some minx’s token, and I must take out the
work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever
you had it, I’ll take out no work on’t.
CASSIO

How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!
OTHELLO

By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
BIANCA

An you’ll come to supper to-night, you may; an you
will not, come when you are next prepared for.
Exit
IAGO

After her, after her.
CASSIO

‘Faith, I must; she’ll rail in the street else.
IAGO

Will you sup there?
CASSIO

‘Faith, I intend so.
IAGO

Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain
speak with you.
CASSIO

Prithee, come; will you?
IAGO

Go to; say no more.
Exit CASSIO
OTHELLO

[Advancing] How shall I murder him, Iago?
IAGO

Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
OTHELLO

O Iago!
IAGO

And did you see the handkerchief?
OTHELLO

Was that mine?
IAGO

Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the
foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he
hath given it his whore.
OTHELLO

I would have him nine years a-killing.
A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!
IAGO

Nay, you must forget that.
OTHELLO

Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night;
for she shall not live: no, my heart is turned to
stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the
world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by
an emperor’s side and command him tasks.
IAGO

Nay, that’s not your way.
OTHELLO

Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate
with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she
will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high
and plenteous wit and invention:–
IAGO

She’s the worse for all this.
OTHELLO

O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so
gentle a condition!
IAGO

Ay, too gentle.
OTHELLO

Nay, that’s certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago!
O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
IAGO

If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes
near nobody.
OTHELLO

I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!
IAGO

O, ’tis foul in her.
OTHELLO

With mine officer!
IAGO

That’s fouler.
OTHELLO

Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I’ll not
expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.
IAGO

Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even
the bed she hath contaminated.
OTHELLO

Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.
IAGO

And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you
shall hear more by midnight.
OTHELLO

Excellent good.
A trumpet within
What trumpet is that same?
IAGO

Something from Venice, sure. ‘Tis Lodovico
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.
Enter LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants
LODOVICO

Save you, worthy general!
OTHELLO

With all my heart, sir.
LODOVICO

The duke and senators of Venice greet you.
Gives him a letter
OTHELLO

I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.
Opens the letter, and reads
DESDEMONA

And what’s the news, good cousin Lodovico?
IAGO

I am very glad to see you, signior
Welcome to Cyprus.
LODOVICO

I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?
IAGO

Lives, sir.
DESDEMONA

Cousin, there’s fall’n between him and my lord
An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.
OTHELLO

Are you sure of that?
DESDEMONA

My lord?
OTHELLO

[Reads] ‘This fail you not to do, as you will–‘
LODOVICO

He did not call; he’s busy in the paper.
Is there division ‘twixt my lord and Cassio?
DESDEMONA

A most unhappy one: I would do much
To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
OTHELLO

Fire and brimstone!
DESDEMONA

My lord?
OTHELLO

Are you wise?
DESDEMONA

What, is he angry?
LODOVICO

May be the letter moved him;
For, as I think, they do command him home,
Deputing Cassio in his government.
DESDEMONA

Trust me, I am glad on’t.
OTHELLO

Indeed!
DESDEMONA

My lord?
OTHELLO

I am glad to see you mad.
DESDEMONA

Why, sweet Othello,–
OTHELLO

[Striking her] Devil!
DESDEMONA

I have not deserved this.
LODOVICO

My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
Though I should swear I saw’t: ’tis very much:
Make her amends; she weeps.
OTHELLO

O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!
DESDEMONA

I will not stay to offend you.
Going
LODOVICO

Truly, an obedient lady:
I do beseech your lordship, call her back.
OTHELLO

Mistress!
DESDEMONA

My lord?
OTHELLO

What would you with her, sir?
LODOVICO

Who, I, my lord?
OTHELLO

Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
And she’s obedient, as you say, obedient,
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
Concerning this, sir,–O well-painted passion!–
I am commanded home. Get you away;
I’ll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
Exit DESDEMONA
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
I do entreat that we may sup together:
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.–Goats and monkeys!
Exit
LODOVICO

Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,
Could neither graze nor pierce?
IAGO

He is much changed.
LODOVICO

Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?
IAGO

He’s that he is: I may not breathe my censure
What he might be: if what he might he is not,
I would to heaven he were!
LODOVICO

What, strike his wife!
IAGO

‘Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
That stroke would prove the worst!
LODOVICO

Is it his use?
Or did the letters work upon his blood,
And new-create this fault?
IAGO

Alas, alas!
It is not honesty in me to speak
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
And his own courses will denote him so
That I may save my speech: do but go after,
And mark how he continues.
LODOVICO

I am sorry that I am deceived in him.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter OTHELLO and EMILIA
OTHELLO

You have seen nothing then?
EMILIA

Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
OTHELLO

Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
EMILIA

But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
Each syllable that breath made up between them.
OTHELLO

What, did they never whisper?
EMILIA

Never, my lord.
OTHELLO

Nor send you out o’ the way?
EMILIA

Never.
OTHELLO

To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
EMILIA

Never, my lord.
OTHELLO

That’s strange.
EMILIA

I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch have put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse!
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
There’s no man happy; the purest of their wives
Is foul as slander.
OTHELLO

Bid her come hither: go.
Exit EMILIA
She says enough; yet she’s a simple bawd
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
A closet lock and key of villanous secrets
And yet she’ll kneel and pray; I have seen her do’t.
Enter DESDEMONA with EMILIA
DESDEMONA

My lord, what is your will?
OTHELLO

Pray, chuck, come hither.
DESDEMONA

What is your pleasure?
OTHELLO

Let me see your eyes;
Look in my face.
DESDEMONA

What horrible fancy’s this?
OTHELLO

[To EMILIA] Some of your function, mistress;
Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
Cough, or cry ‘hem,’ if any body come:
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.
Exit EMILIA
DESDEMONA

Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words.
But not the words.
OTHELLO

Why, what art thou?
DESDEMONA

Your wife, my lord; your true
And loyal wife.
OTHELLO

Come, swear it, damn thyself
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn’d:
Swear thou art honest.
DESDEMONA

Heaven doth truly know it.
OTHELLO

Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
DESDEMONA

To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?
OTHELLO

O Desdemona! away! away! away!
DESDEMONA

Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
If haply you my father do suspect
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,
Why, I have lost him too.
OTHELLO

Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain’d
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner’d up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp’d cherubin,–
Ay, there, look grim as hell!
DESDEMONA

I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
OTHELLO

O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
ne’er been born!
DESDEMONA

Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
OTHELLO

Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!
DESDEMONA

By heaven, you do me wrong.
OTHELLO

Are you not a strumpet?
DESDEMONA

No, as I am a Christian:
If to preserve this vessel for my lord
From any other foul unlawful touch
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.
OTHELLO

What, not a whore?
DESDEMONA

No, as I shall be saved.
OTHELLO

Is’t possible?
DESDEMONA

O, heaven forgive us!
OTHELLO

I cry you mercy, then:
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello.
Raising his voice
You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!
Re-enter EMILIA
You, you, ay, you!
We have done our course; there’s money for your pains:
I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel.
Exit
EMILIA

Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?
DESDEMONA

‘Faith, half asleep.
EMILIA

Good madam, what’s the matter with my lord?
DESDEMONA

With who?
EMILIA

Why, with my lord, madam.
DESDEMONA

Who is thy lord?
EMILIA

He that is yours, sweet lady.
DESDEMONA

I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;
And call thy husband hither.
EMILIA

Here’s a change indeed!
Exit
DESDEMONA

‘Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small’st opinion on my least misuse?
Re-enter EMILIA with IAGO
IAGO

What is your pleasure, madam?
How is’t with you?
DESDEMONA

I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.
IAGO

What’s the matter, lady?
EMILIA

Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
As true hearts cannot bear.
DESDEMONA

Am I that name, Iago?
IAGO

What name, fair lady?
DESDEMONA

Such as she says my lord did say I was.
EMILIA

He call’d her whore: a beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.
IAGO

Why did he so?
DESDEMONA

I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
IAGO

Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
EMILIA

Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father and her country and her friends,
To be call’d whore? would it not make one weep?
DESDEMONA

It is my wretched fortune.
IAGO

Beshrew him for’t!
How comes this trick upon him?
DESDEMONA

Nay, heaven doth know.
EMILIA

I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devised this slander; I’ll be hang’d else.
IAGO

Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
DESDEMONA

If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
EMILIA

A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!
Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?
The Moor’s abused by some most villanous knave,
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
O heaven, that such companions thou’ldst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world
Even from the east to the west!
IAGO

Speak within door.
EMILIA

O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
That turn’d your wit the seamy side without,
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
IAGO

You are a fool; go to.
DESDEMONA

O good Iago,
What shall I do to win my lord again?
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e’er my will did trespass ‘gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
And ever will–though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement–love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love. I cannot say ‘whore:’
It does abhor me now I speak the word;
To do the act that might the addition earn
Not the world’s mass of vanity could make me.
IAGO

I pray you, be content; ’tis but his humour:
The business of the state does him offence,
And he does chide with you.
DESDEMONA

If ’twere no other–
IAGO

‘Tis but so, I warrant.
Trumpets within
Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA
Enter RODERIGO
How now, Roderigo!
RODERIGO

I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
IAGO

What in the contrary?
RODERIGO

Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago;
and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me
all conveniency than suppliest me with the least
advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure
it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace what
already I have foolishly suffered.
IAGO

Will you hear me, Roderigo?
RODERIGO

‘Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
performances are no kin together.
IAGO

You charge me most unjustly.
RODERIGO

With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of
my means. The jewels you have had from me to
deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a
votarist: you have told me she hath received them
and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
respect and acquaintance, but I find none.
IAGO

Well; go to; very well.
RODERIGO

Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor ’tis
not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin
to find myself fobbed in it.
IAGO

Very well.
RODERIGO

I tell you ’tis not very well. I will make myself
known to Desdemona: if she will return me my
jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my
unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I
will seek satisfaction of you.
IAGO

You have said now.
RODERIGO

Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.
IAGO

Why, now I see there’s mettle in thee, and even from
this instant to build on thee a better opinion than
ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: thou hast
taken against me a most just exception; but yet, I
protest, I have dealt most directly in thy affair.
RODERIGO

It hath not appeared.
IAGO

I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your
suspicion is not without wit and judgment. But,
Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I
have greater reason to believe now than ever, I mean
purpose, courage and valour, this night show it: if
thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona,
take me from this world with treachery and devise
engines for my life.
RODERIGO

Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass?
IAGO

Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice
to depute Cassio in Othello’s place.
RODERIGO

Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona
return again to Venice.
IAGO

O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes away with
him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be
lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be
so determinate as the removing of Cassio.
RODERIGO

How do you mean, removing of him?
IAGO

Why, by making him uncapable of Othello’s place;
knocking out his brains.
RODERIGO

And that you would have me to do?
IAGO

Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I
go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which
I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,
you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near
to second your attempt, and he shall fall between
us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with
me; I will show you such a necessity in his death
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on
him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows
to waste: about it.
RODERIGO

I will hear further reason for this.
IAGO

And you shall be satisfied.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Another room In the castle.

Enter OTHELLO, LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, EMILIA and Attendants
LODOVICO

I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
OTHELLO

O, pardon me: ’twill do me good to walk.
LODOVICO

Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
DESDEMONA

Your honour is most welcome.
OTHELLO

Will you walk, sir?
O,–Desdemona,–
DESDEMONA

My lord?
OTHELLO

Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.
DESDEMONA

I will, my lord.
Exeunt OTHELLO, LODOVICO, and Attendants
EMILIA

How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.
DESDEMONA

He says he will return incontinent:
He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
EMILIA

Dismiss me!
DESDEMONA

It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:
We must not now displease him.
EMILIA

I would you had never seen him!
DESDEMONA

So would not I my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns–
Prithee, unpin me,–have grace and favour in them.
EMILIA

I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
DESDEMONA

All’s one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
EMILIA

Come, come you talk.
DESDEMONA

My mother had a maid call’d Barbara:
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her: she had a song of ‘willow;’
An old thing ’twas, but it express’d her fortune,
And she died singing it: that song to-night
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,
But to go hang my head all at one side,
And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.
EMILIA

Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
DESDEMONA

No, unpin me here.
This Lodovico is a proper man.
EMILIA

A very handsome man.
DESDEMONA

He speaks well.
EMILIA

I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot
to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
DESDEMONA

[Singing] The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans;
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones;
Lay by these:–
Singing
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Prithee, hie thee; he’ll come anon:–
Singing
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-
Nay, that’s not next.–Hark! who is’t that knocks?
EMILIA

It’s the wind.
DESDEMONA

[Singing] I call’d my love false love; but what
said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow:
If I court moe women, you’ll couch with moe men!
So, get thee gone; good night Ate eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?
EMILIA

‘Tis neither here nor there.
DESDEMONA

I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,–tell me, Emilia,–
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA

There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA

Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA

Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA

No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA

Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do’t as well i’ the dark.
DESDEMONA

Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA

The world’s a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
DESDEMONA

In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
EMILIA

In troth, I think I should; and undo’t when I had
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
exhibition; but for the whole world,–why, who would
not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for’t.
DESDEMONA

Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
EMILIA

Why the wrong is but a wrong i’ the world: and
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your
own world, and you might quickly make it right.
DESDEMONA

I do not think there is any such woman.
EMILIA

Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would
store the world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
DESDEMONA

Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
Exeunt

ACT V
SCENE I. Cyprus. A street.

Enter IAGO and RODERIGO
IAGO

Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come:
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I’ll be at thy elbow:
It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.
RODERIGO

Be near at hand; I may miscarry in’t.
IAGO

Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy stand.
Retires
RODERIGO

I have no great devotion to the deed;
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:
‘Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies.
IAGO

I have rubb’d this young quat almost to the sense,
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain: live Roderigo,
He calls me to a restitution large
Of gold and jewels that I bobb’d from him,
As gifts to Desdemona;
It must not be: if Cassio do remain,
He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor
May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril:
No, he must die. But so: I hear him coming.
Enter CASSIO
RODERIGO

I know his gait, ’tis he.–Villain, thou diest!
Makes a pass at CASSIO
CASSIO

That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
But that my coat is better than thou know’st
I will make proof of thine.
Draws, and wounds RODERIGO
RODERIGO

O, I am slain!
IAGO from behind wounds CASSIO in the leg, and exit
CASSIO

I am maim’d for ever. Help, ho! murder! murder!
Falls
Enter OTHELLO
OTHELLO

The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.
RODERIGO

O, villain that I am!
OTHELLO

It is even so.
CASSIO

O, help, ho! light! a surgeon!
OTHELLO

‘Tis he:–O brave Iago, honest and just,
That hast such noble sense of thy friend’s wrong!
Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,
And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come.
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
Thy bed, lust-stain’d, shall with lust’s blood be spotted.
Exit
Enter LODOVICO and GRATIANO
CASSIO

What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! murder!
GRATIANO

‘Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.
CASSIO

O, help!
LODOVICO

Hark!
RODERIGO

O wretched villain!
LODOVICO

Two or three groan: it is a heavy night:
These may be counterfeits: let’s think’t unsafe
To come in to the cry without more help.
RODERIGO

Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death.
LODOVICO

Hark!
Re-enter IAGO, with a light
GRATIANO

Here’s one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.
IAGO

Who’s there? whose noise is this that ones on murder?
LODOVICO

We do not know.
IAGO

Did not you hear a cry?
CASSIO

Here, here! for heaven’s sake, help me!
IAGO

What’s the matter?
GRATIANO

This is Othello’s ancient, as I take it.
LODOVICO

The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.
IAGO

What are you here that cry so grievously?
CASSIO

Iago? O, I am spoil’d, undone by villains!
Give me some help.
IAGO

O me, lieutenant! what villains have done this?
CASSIO

I think that one of them is hereabout,
And cannot make away.
IAGO

O treacherous villains!
What are you there? come in, and give some help.
To LODOVICO and GRATIANO
RODERIGO

O, help me here!
CASSIO

That’s one of them.
IAGO

O murderous slave! O villain!
Stabs RODERIGO
RODERIGO

O damn’d Iago! O inhuman dog!
IAGO

Kill men i’ the dark!–Where be these bloody thieves?–
How silent is this town!–Ho! murder! murder!–
What may you be? are you of good or evil?
LODOVICO

As you shall prove us, praise us.
IAGO

Signior Lodovico?
LODOVICO

He, sir.
IAGO

I cry you mercy. Here’s Cassio hurt by villains.
GRATIANO

Cassio!
IAGO

How is’t, brother!
CASSIO

My leg is cut in two.
IAGO

Marry, heaven forbid!
Light, gentlemen; I’ll bind it with my shirt.
Enter BIANCA
BIANCA

What is the matter, ho? who is’t that cried?
IAGO

Who is’t that cried!
BIANCA

O my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! O Cassio,
Cassio, Cassio!
IAGO

O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect
Who they should be that have thus many led you?
CASSIO

No.
GRATIANO

I am to find you thus: I have been to seek you.
IAGO

Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,
To bear him easily hence!
BIANCA

Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!
IAGO

Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash
To be a party in this injury.
Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;
Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?
Alas my friend and my dear countryman
Roderigo! no:–yes, sure: O heaven! Roderigo.
GRATIANO

What, of Venice?
IAGO

Even he, sir; did you know him?
GRATIANO

Know him! ay.
IAGO

Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;
These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,
That so neglected you.
GRATIANO

I am glad to see you.
IAGO

How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!
GRATIANO

Roderigo!
IAGO

He, he ’tis he.
A chair brought in
O, that’s well said; the chair!
GRATIANO

Some good man bear him carefully from hence;
I’ll fetch the general’s surgeon.
To BIANCA
For you, mistress,
Save you your labour. He that lies slain
here, Cassio,
Was my dear friend: what malice was between you?
CASSIO

None in the world; nor do I know the man.
IAGO

[To BIANCA] What, look you pale? O, bear him out
o’ the air.
CASSIO and RODERIGO are borne off
Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?
Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?
Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.
Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her:
Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak,
Though tongues were out of use.
Enter EMILIA
EMILIA

‘Las, what’s the matter? what’s the matter, husband?
IAGO

Cassio hath here been set on in the dark
By Roderigo and fellows that are scaped:
He’s almost slain, and Roderigo dead.
EMILIA

Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!
IAGO

This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,
Go know of Cassio where he supp’d to-night.
To BIANCA
What, do you shake at that?
BIANCA

He supp’d at my house; but I therefore shake not.
IAGO

O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.
EMILIA

Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!
BIANCA

I am no strumpet; but of life as honest
As you that thus abuse me.
EMILIA

As I! foh! fie upon thee!
IAGO

Kind gentlemen, let’s go see poor Cassio dress’d.
Come, mistress, you must tell’s another tale.
Emilia run you to the citadel,
And tell my lord and lady what hath happ’d.
Will you go on? I pray.
Aside
This is the night
That either makes me or fordoes me quite.
Exeunt

SCENE II. A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA in bed asleep;

a light burning.
Enter OTHELLO
OTHELLO

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,–
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!–
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.
Kissing her
Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow’s heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
DESDEMONA

Who’s there? Othello?
OTHELLO

Ay. Desdemona.
DESDEMONA

Will you come to bed, my lord?
OTHELLO

Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA

Ay, my lord.
OTHELLO

If you bethink yourself of any crime
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.
DESDEMONA

Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?
OTHELLO

Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;
No; heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.
DESDEMONA

Talk you of killing?
OTHELLO

Ay, I do.
DESDEMONA

Then heaven
Have mercy on me!
OTHELLO

Amen, with all my heart!
DESDEMONA

If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
OTHELLO

Hum!
DESDEMONA

And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then
When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not,
Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.
OTHELLO

Think on thy sins.
DESDEMONA

They are loves I bear to you.
OTHELLO

Ay, and for that thou diest.
DESDEMONA

That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:
These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
They do not point on me.
OTHELLO

Peace, and be still!
DESDEMONA

I will so. What’s the matter?
OTHELLO

That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee
Thou gavest to Cassio.
DESDEMONA

No, by my life and soul!
Send for the man, and ask him.
OTHELLO

Sweet soul, take heed,
Take heed of perjury; thou art on thy deathbed.
DESDEMONA

Ay, but not yet to die.
OTHELLO

Yes, presently:
Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin;
For to deny each article with oath
Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.
DESDEMONA

Then Lord have mercy on me!
OTHELLO

I say, amen.
DESDEMONA

And have you mercy too! I never did
Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio
But with such general warranty of heaven
As I might love: I never gave him token.
OTHELLO

By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in’s hand.
O perjured woman! thou dost stone my heart,
And makest me call what I intend to do
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice:
I saw the handkerchief.
DESDEMONA

He found it then;
I never gave it him: send for him hither;
Let him confess a truth.
OTHELLO

He hath confess’d.
DESDEMONA

What, my lord?
OTHELLO

That he hath used thee.
DESDEMONA

How? unlawfully?
OTHELLO

Ay.
DESDEMONA

He will not say so.
OTHELLO

No, his mouth is stopp’d;
Honest Iago hath ta’en order for’t.
DESDEMONA

O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?
OTHELLO

Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all.
DESDEMONA

Alas! he is betray’d and I undone.
OTHELLO

Out, strumpet! weep’st thou for him to my face?
DESDEMONA

O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!
OTHELLO

Down, strumpet!
DESDEMONA

Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!
OTHELLO

Nay, if you strive–
DESDEMONA

But half an hour!
OTHELLO

Being done, there is no pause.
DESDEMONA

But while I say one prayer!
OTHELLO

It is too late.
He stifles her
EMILIA

[Within] My lord , my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord!
OTHELLO

What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?
I that am cruel am yet merciful;
I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So, so.
EMILIA

[Within] What, ho! my lord, my lord!
OTHELLO

Who’s there?
EMILIA

[Within] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!
OTHELLO

Yes: ’tis Emilia. By and by. She’s dead.
‘Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio’s death.–
The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?
Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were’t good?–
I think she stirs again:–no. What’s best to do?
If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife:
My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.
O insupportable! O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.
EMILIA

[Within] I do beseech you
That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!
OTHELLO

I had forgot thee: O, come in, Emilia;
Soft; by and by. Let me the curtains draw.
Where art thou?
Unlocks the door
Enter EMILIA
What’s the matter with thee now?
EMILIA

O, my good lord, yonder’s foul murders done!
OTHELLO

What, now?
EMILIA

But now, my lord.
OTHELLO

It is the very error of the moon;
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,
And makes men mad.
EMILIA

Cassio, my lord, hath kill’d a young Venetian
Call’d Roderigo.
OTHELLO

Roderigo kill’d!
And Cassio kill’d!
EMILIA

No, Cassio is not kill’d.
OTHELLO

Not Cassio kill’d! then murder’s out of tune,
And sweet revenge grows harsh.
DESDEMONA

O, falsely, falsely murder’d!
EMILIA

Alas, what cry is that?
OTHELLO

That! what?
EMILIA

Out, and alas! that was my lady’s voice.
Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!
Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!
DESDEMONA

A guiltless death I die.
EMILIA

O, who hath done this deed?
DESDEMONA

Nobody; I myself. Farewell
Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell!
Dies
OTHELLO

Why, how should she be murder’d?
EMILIA

Alas, who knows?
OTHELLO

You heard her say herself, it was not I.
EMILIA

She said so: I must needs report the truth.
OTHELLO

She’s, like a liar, gone to burning hell:
‘Twas I that kill’d her.
EMILIA

O, the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil!
OTHELLO

She turn’d to folly, and she was a whore.
EMILIA

Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
OTHELLO

She was false as water.
EMILIA

Thou art rash as fire, to say
That she was false: O, she was heavenly true!
OTHELLO

Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
O, I were damn’d beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.
EMILIA

My husband!
OTHELLO

Thy husband.
EMILIA

That she was false to wedlock?
OTHELLO

Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and Perfect chrysolite,
I’ld not have sold her for it.
EMILIA

My husband!
OTHELLO

Ay, ’twas he that told me first:
An honest man he is, and hates the slime
That sticks on filthy deeds.
EMILIA

My husband!
OTHELLO

What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.
EMILIA

O mistress, villany hath made mocks with love,
My husband say that she was false!
OTHELLO

He, woman;
I say thy husband: dost understand the word?
My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.
EMILIA

If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day! he lies to the heart:
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.
OTHELLO

Ha!
EMILIA

Do thy worst:
This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven
Than thou wast worthy her.
OTHELLO

Peace, you were best.
EMILIA

Thou hast not half that power to do me harm
As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!
As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed–
I care not for thy sword; I’ll make thee known,
Though I lost twenty lives.–Help! help, ho! help!
The Moor hath kill’d my mistress! Murder! murder!
Enter MONTANO, GRATIANO, IAGO, and others
MONTANO

What is the matter? How now, general!
EMILIA

O, are you come, Iago? you have done well,
That men must lay their murders on your neck.
GRATIANO

What is the matter?
EMILIA

Disprove this villain, if thou be’st a man:
He says thou told’st him that his wife was false:
I know thou didst not, thou’rt not such a villain:
Speak, for my heart is full.
IAGO

I told him what I thought, and told no more
Than what he found himself was apt and true.
EMILIA

But did you ever tell him she was false?
IAGO

I did.
EMILIA

You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.
She false with Cassio!–did you say with Cassio?
IAGO

With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.
EMILIA

I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak:
My mistress here lies murder’d in her bed,–
All

O heavens forfend!
EMILIA

And your reports have set the murder on.
OTHELLO

Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed.
GRATIANO

‘Tis a strange truth.
MONTANO

O monstrous act!
EMILIA

Villany, villany, villany!
I think upon’t, I think: I smell’t: O villany!–
I thought so then:–I’ll kill myself for grief:–
O villany, villany!
IAGO

What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.
EMILIA

Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:
‘Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home.
OTHELLO

O! O! O!
He falls on the bed
EMILIA

Nay, lay thee down and roar;
For thou hast kill’d the sweetest innocent
That e’er did lift up eye.
OTHELLO

[Rising] O, she was foul!
I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece,
Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp’d:
I know this act shows horrible and grim.
GRATIANO

Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father’s dead:
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobation.
OTHELLO

‘Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
A thousand times committed; Cassio confess’d it:
And she did gratify his amorous works
With that recognizance and pledge of love
Which I first gave her; I saw it in his hand:
It was a handkerchief, an antique token
My father gave my mother.
EMILIA

O heaven! O heavenly powers!
IAGO

Come, hold your peace.
EMILIA

‘Twill out, ’twill out: I peace!
No, I will speak as liberal as the north:
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.
IAGO

Be wise, and get you home.
EMILIA

I will not.
IAGO offers to stab EMILIA
GRATIANO

Fie!
Your sword upon a woman?
EMILIA

O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak’st of
I found by fortune and did give my husband;
For often, with a solemn earnestness,
More than indeed belong’d to such a trifle,
He begg’d of me to steal it.
IAGO

Villanous whore!
EMILIA

She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it,
And I did give’t my husband.
IAGO

Filth, thou liest!
EMILIA

By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
Do with so good a woman?
OTHELLO

Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?–Precious villain!
He runs at IAGO IAGO, from behind, stabs EMILIA, and exit
GRATIANO

The woman falls; sure, he hath kill’d his wife.
EMILIA

Ay, ay: O, lay me by my mistress’ side.
GRATIANO

He’s gone, but his wife’s kill’d.
MONTANO

‘Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,
Which I have here recover’d from the Moor:
Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,
But kill him rather. I’ll after that same villain,
For ’tis a damned slave.
Exeunt MONTANO and GRATIANO
OTHELLO

I am not valiant neither,
But ever puny whipster gets my sword:
But why should honour outlive honesty?
Let it go all.
EMILIA

What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan.
And die in music.
Singing
Willow, willow, willow,–
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
So speaking as I think, I die, I die.
Dies
OTHELLO

I have another weapon in this chamber;
It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook’s temper:–
O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.
GRATIANO

[Within] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear:
Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.
OTHELLO

Look in upon me then and speak with me,
Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.
Re-enter GRATIANO
GRATIANO

What is the matter?
OTHELLO

Behold, I have a weapon;
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier’s thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? ’tis not so now.
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon’d;
Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay’d? ’tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello’s breast,
And he retires. Where should Othello go?
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr’d wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Enter LODOVICO. MONTANO, CASSIO carried in a chair, and Officers with IAGO, prisoner
LODOVICO

Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?
OTHELLO

That’s he that was Othello: here I am.
LODOVICO

Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.
OTHELLO

I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable.
If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee.
Wounds IAGO
LODOVICO

Wrench his sword from him.
IAGO

I bleed, sir; but not kill’d.
OTHELLO

I am not sorry neither: I’ld have thee live;
For, in my sense, ’tis happiness to die.
LODOVICO

O thou Othello, thou wert once so good,
Fall’n in the practise of a damned slave,
What shall be said to thee?
OTHELLO

Why, any thing:
An honourable murderer, if you will;
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.
LODOVICO

This wretch hath part confess’d his villany:
Did you and he consent in Cassio’s death?
OTHELLO

Ay.
CASSIO

Dear general, I never gave you cause.
OTHELLO

I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?
IAGO

Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word.
LODOVICO

What, not to pray?
GRATIANO

Torments will ope your lips.
OTHELLO

Well, thou dost best.
LODOVICO

Sir, you shall understand what hath befall’n,
Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;
And here another: the one of them imports
The death of Cassio to be undertook
By Roderigo.
OTHELLO

O villain!
CASSIO

Most heathenish and most gross!
LODOVICO

Now here’s another discontented paper,
Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;
But that belike Iago in the interim
Came in and satisfied him.
OTHELLO

O the pernicious caitiff!
How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief
That was my wife’s?
CASSIO

I found it in my chamber:
And he himself confess’d but even now
That there he dropp’d it for a special purpose
Which wrought to his desire.
OTHELLO

O fool! fool! fool!
CASSIO

There is besides in Roderigo’s letter,
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came
That I was cast: and even but now he spake,
After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,
Iago set him on.
LODOVICO

You must forsake this room, and go with us:
Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
If there be any cunning cruelty
That can torment him much and hold him long,
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state. Come, bring him away.
OTHELLO

Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.
Stabs himself
LODOVICO

O bloody period!
GRATIANO

All that’s spoke is marr’d.
OTHELLO

I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee: no way but this;
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
Falls on the bed, and dies
CASSIO

This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;
For he was great of heart.
LODOVICO

[To IAGO] O Spartan dog,
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
This is thy work: the object poisons sight;
Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,
And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
For they succeed on you. To you, lord governor,
Remains the censure of this hellish villain;
The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!
Myself will straight aboard: and to the state
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.
Exeunt

arkworth. Before the castle
Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues
RUMOUR

Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity
Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepared defence,
Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry’s victory;
Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebel’s blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword,
And that the king before the Douglas’ rage
Stoop’d his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour’d through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn’d of me: from Rumour’s tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
true wrongs.
Exit

ACT I
SCENE I. The same.

Enter LORD BARDOLPH
LORD BARDOLPH

Who keeps the gate here, ho?
The Porter opens the gate
Where is the earl?
Porter

What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH

Tell thou the earl
That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
Porter

His lordship is walk’d forth into the orchard;
Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself wilt answer.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND
LORD BARDOLPH

Here comes the earl.
Exit Porter
NORTHUMBERLAND

What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild: contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH

Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH

As good as heart can wish:
The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill’d by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times,
Since Caesar’s fortunes!
NORTHUMBERLAND

How is this derived?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH

I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely render’d me these news for true.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.
Enter TRAVERS
LORD BARDOLPH

My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish’d with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from me.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
TRAVERS

My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn’d me back
With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopp’d by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask’d the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
He told me that rebellion had bad luck
And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And bending forward struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
He seem’d in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Ha! Again:
Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?
Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill luck?
LORD BARDOLPH

My lord, I’ll tell you what;
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I’ll give my barony: never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH

Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter MORTON
NORTHUMBERLAND

Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness’d usurpation.
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON

I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND

How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
This thou wouldst say, ‘Your son did thus and thus;
Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:’
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with ‘Brother, son, and all are dead.’
MORTON

Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But, for my lord your son–
NORTHUMBERLAND

Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes
That what he fear’d is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
MORTON

You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye:
Thou shakest thy head and hold’st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember’d tolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH

I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON

I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper’d courage in his troops;
For from his metal was his party steel’d;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn’d on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
And as the thing that’s heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur’s loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
Too soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
‘Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
Of those that turn’d their backs, and in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.
NORTHUMBERLAND

For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,
Weaken’d with grief, being now enraged with grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
Which princes, flesh’d with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
TRAVERS

This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
LORD BARDOLPH

Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
MORTON

The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o’er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ’d the account of chance, before you said
‘Let us make head.’ It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
You knew he walk’d o’er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in than to get o’er;
You were advised his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
Yet did you say ‘Go forth;’ and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?
LORD BARDOLPH

We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought our life ’twas ten to one;
And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
Choked the respect of likely peril fear’d;
And since we are o’erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.
MORTON

‘Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle Archbishop of York is up
With well-appointed powers: he is a man
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corpse,
But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain’d,
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem’d on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He’s followed both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.
NORTHUMBERLAND

I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge:
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
Never so few, and never yet more need.
Exeunt

SCENE II. London. A street.

Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler
FALSTAFF

Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
Page

He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
water; but, for the party that owed it, he might
have more diseases than he knew for.
FALSTAFF

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more
than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that
hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
prince put thee into my service for any other reason
than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn
in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you
neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
send you back again to your master, for a jewel,–
the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is
not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in
the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his
cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is
a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, ’tis
not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a
face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence
out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had
writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He
may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine,
I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
Page

He said, sir, you should procure him better
assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his
band and yours; he liked not the security.
FALSTAFF

Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his
tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally
yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,
and then stand upon security! The whoreson
smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and
bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
through with them in honest taking up, then they
must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
security. I looked a’ should have sent me two and
twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he
sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;
for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness
of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he
see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.
Where’s Bardolph?
Page

He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.
FALSTAFF

I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in
Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the
stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.
Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant
Page

Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
Prince for striking him about Bardolph.
FALSTAFF

Wait, close; I will not see him.
Lord Chief-Justice What’s he that goes there?
Servant

Falstaff, an’t please your lordship.
Lord Chief-Justice He that was in question for the robbery?
Servant

He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at
Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some
charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.
Lord Chief-Justice What, to York? Call him back again.
Servant

Sir John Falstaff!
FALSTAFF

Boy, tell him I am deaf.
Page

You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
Lord Chief-Justice I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.
Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.
Servant

Sir John!
FALSTAFF

What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not
wars? is there not employment? doth not the king
lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it
is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
how to make it.
Servant

You mistake me, sir.
FALSTAFF

Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting
my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied
in my throat, if I had said so.
Servant

I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our
soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you,
you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other
than an honest man.
FALSTAFF

I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that
which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,
hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be
hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!
Servant

Sir, my lord would speak with you.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
FALSTAFF

My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in
you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must
humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
of your health.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to
Shrewsbury.
FALSTAFF

An’t please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
returned with some discomfort from Wales.
Lord Chief-Justice I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when
I sent for you.
FALSTAFF

And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into
this same whoreson apoplexy.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with
you.
FALSTAFF

This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,
an’t please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the
blood, a whoreson tingling.
Lord Chief-Justice What tell you me of it? be it as it is.
FALSTAFF

It hath its original from much grief, from study and
perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of
his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.
Lord Chief-Justice I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
hear not what I say to you.
FALSTAFF

Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an’t please
you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady
of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
Lord Chief-Justice To punish you by the heels would amend the
attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
become your physician.
FALSTAFF

I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
your lordship may minister the potion of
imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
should I be your patient to follow your
prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
Lord Chief-Justice I sent for you, when there were matters against you
for your life, to come speak with me.
FALSTAFF

As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
laws of this land-service, I did not come.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
FALSTAFF

He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.
Lord Chief-Justice Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
FALSTAFF

I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
greater, and my waist slenderer.
Lord Chief-Justice You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF

The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
with the great belly, and he my dog.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your
day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded
over your night’s exploit on Gad’s-hill: you may
thank the unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting
that action.
FALSTAFF

My lord?
Lord Chief-Justice But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF

To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
Lord Chief-Justice What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
out.
FALSTAFF

A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
Lord Chief-Justice There is not a white hair on your face but should
have his effect of gravity.
FALSTAFF

His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
Lord Chief-Justice You follow the young prince up and down, like his
ill angel.
FALSTAFF

Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
costermonger times that true valour is turned
bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath
his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the
other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
You that are old consider not the capacities of us
that are young; you do measure the heat of our
livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we
that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess,
are wags too.
Lord Chief-Justice Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
that are written down old with all the characters of
age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!
FALSTAFF

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
afternoon, with a white head and something a round
belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing
and singing of anthems. To approve my youth
further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in
judgment and understanding; and he that will caper
with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the
money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that
the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
chequed him for it, and the young lion repents;
marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk
and old sack.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, God send the prince a better companion!
FALSTAFF

God send the companion a better prince! I cannot
rid my hands of him.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I
hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster
against the Archbishop and the Earl of
Northumberland.
FALSTAFF

Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home,
that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the
Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean
not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,
and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I
might never spit white again. There is not a
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am
thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it
was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
they have a good thing, to make it too common. If
ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give
me rest. I would to God my name were not so
terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be
eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
nothing with perpetual motion.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
expedition!
FALSTAFF

Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
furnish me forth?
Lord Chief-Justice Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to
bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my
cousin Westmoreland.
Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant
FALSTAFF

If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man
can no more separate age and covetousness than a’
can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout
galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!
Page

Sir?
FALSTAFF

What money is in my purse?
Page

Seven groats and two pence.
FALSTAFF

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
About it: you know where to find me.
Exit Page
A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
toe. ‘Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
I will turn diseases to commodity.
Exit

SCENE III. York. The Archbishop’s palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?
MOWBRAY

I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied
How in our means we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.
HASTINGS

Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.
LORD BARDOLPH

The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?
HASTINGS

With him, we may.
LORD BARDOLPH

Yea, marry, there’s the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

‘Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH

It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leap’d into destruction.
HASTINGS

But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
LORD BARDOLPH

Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
Lives so in hope as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at last desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up, should we survey
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men:
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds
And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.
HASTINGS

Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possess’d
The utmost man of expectation,
I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
LORD BARDOLPH

What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?
HASTINGS

To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

That he should draw his several strengths together
And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.
HASTINGS

If he should do so,
He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh
Baying him at the heels: never fear that.
LORD BARDOLPH

Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
HASTINGS

The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
But who is substituted ‘gainst the French,
I have no certain notice.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
And being now trimm’d in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl’st to find it. What trust is in
these times?
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
Are now become enamour’d on his grave:
Thou, that threw’st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Criest now ‘O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this!’ O thoughts of men accursed!
Past and to come seems best; things present worst.
MOWBRAY

Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?
HASTINGS

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
Exeunt

ACT II
SCENE I. London. A street.

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE following.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Master Fang, have you entered the action?
FANG

It is entered.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Where’s your yeoman? Is’t a lusty yeoman? will a’
stand to ‘t?
FANG

Sirrah, where’s Snare?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
SNARE

Here, here.
FANG

Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.
SNARE

It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in
mine own house, and that most beastly: in good
faith, he cares not what mischief he does. If his
weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will
spare neither man, woman, nor child.
FANG

If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

No, nor I neither: I’ll be at your elbow.
FANG

An I but fist him once; an a’ come but within my vice,–
MISTRESS QUICKLY

I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he’s an
infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang,
hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not
‘scape. A’ comes continuantly to Pie-corner–saving
your manhoods–to buy a saddle; and he is indited to
dinner to the Lubber’s-head in Lumbert street, to
Master Smooth’s the silkman: I pray ye, since my
exion is entered and my case so openly known to the
world, let him be brought in to his answer. A
hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to
bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and
have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed
off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame
to be thought on. There is no honesty in such
dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a
beast, to bear every knave’s wrong. Yonder he
comes; and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,
with him. Do your offices, do your offices: Master
Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.
Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF

How now! whose mare’s dead? what’s the matter?
FANG

Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
FALSTAFF

Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the
villain’s head: throw the quean in the channel.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Throw me in the channel! I’ll throw thee in the
channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly
rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle
villain! wilt thou kill God’s officers and the
king’s? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a
honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.
FALSTAFF

Keep them off, Bardolph.
FANG

A rescue! a rescue!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo’t, wo’t
thou? Thou wo’t, wo’t ta? do, do, thou rogue! do,
thou hemp-seed!
FALSTAFF

Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You
fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.
Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men
Lord Chief-Justice What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
Lord Chief-Justice How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?
Doth this become your place, your time and business?
You should have been well on your way to York.
Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang’st upon him?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O most worshipful lord, an’t please your grace, I am
a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
Lord Chief-Justice For what sum?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all,
all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home;
he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of
his: but I will have some of it out again, or I
will ride thee o’ nights like the mare.
FALSTAFF

I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have
any vantage of ground to get up.
Lord Chief-Justice How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good
temper would endure this tempest of exclamation?
Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so
rough a course to come by her own?
FALSTAFF

What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber,
at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke
thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of
Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was
washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady
thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife
Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then and call me
gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of
vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns;
whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I
told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs,
desire me to be no more so familiarity with such
poor people; saying that ere long they should call
me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me
fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy
book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.
FALSTAFF

My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up
and down the town that the eldest son is like you:
she hath been in good case, and the truth is,
poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish
officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It
is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words
that come with such more than impudent sauciness
from you, can thrust me from a level consideration:
you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the
easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her
serve your uses both in purse and in person.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Yea, in truth, my lord.
Lord Chief-Justice Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
unpay the villany you have done her: the one you
may do with sterling money, and the other with
current repentance.
FALSTAFF

My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
reply. You call honourable boldness impudent
sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say
nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say
to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers,
being upon hasty employment in the king’s affairs.
Lord Chief-Justice You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this
poor woman.
FALSTAFF

Come hither, hostess.
Enter GOWER
Lord Chief-Justice Now, Master Gower, what news?
GOWER

The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
FALSTAFF

As I am a gentleman.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Faith, you said so before.
FALSTAFF

As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain
to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my
dining-chambers.
FALSTAFF

Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of
the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work,
is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these
fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou
canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humours, there’s
not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face,
and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I
know thou wast set on to this.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i’
faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me,
la!
FALSTAFF

Let it alone; I’ll make other shift: you’ll be a
fool still.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I
hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?
FALSTAFF

Will I live?
To BARDOLPH
Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
FALSTAFF

No more words; let’s have her.
Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy
Lord Chief-Justice I have heard better news.
FALSTAFF

What’s the news, my lord?
Lord Chief-Justice Where lay the king last night?
GOWER

At Basingstoke, my lord.
FALSTAFF

I hope, my lord, all’s well: what is the news, my lord?
Lord Chief-Justice Come all his forces back?
GOWER

No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,
Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
FALSTAFF

Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?
Lord Chief-Justice You shall have letters of me presently:
Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
FALSTAFF

My lord!
Lord Chief-Justice What’s the matter?
FALSTAFF

Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
GOWER

I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you,
good Sir John.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
take soldiers up in counties as you go.
FALSTAFF

Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
Lord Chief-Justice What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?
FALSTAFF

Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool
that taught them me. This is the right fencing
grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.
Lord Chief-Justice Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.
Exeunt

SCENE II. London. Another street.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS
PRINCE HENRY

Before God, I am exceeding weary.
POINS

Is’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
have attached one of so high blood.
PRINCE HENRY

Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
POINS

Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
to remember so weak a composition.
PRINCE HENRY

Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,
by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature,
small beer. But, indeed, these humble
considerations make me out of love with my
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember
thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to
take note how many pair of silk stockings thou
hast, viz. these, and those that were thy
peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy
shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for
use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better
than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when
thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done
a great while, because the rest of thy low
countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland:
and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins
of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the
midwives say the children are not in the fault;
whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are
mightily strengthened.
POINS

How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,
you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good
young princes would do so, their fathers being so
sick as yours at this time is?
PRINCE HENRY

Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
POINS

Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE HENRY

It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
POINS

Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you
will tell.
PRINCE HENRY

Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be
sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell
thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad
indeed too.
POINS

Very hardly upon such a subject.
PRINCE HENRY

By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s
book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell
thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so
sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art
hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
POINS

The reason?
PRINCE HENRY

What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?
POINS

I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
PRINCE HENRY

It would be every man’s thought; and thou art a
blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never
a man’s thought in the world keeps the road-way
better than thine: every man would think me an
hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most
worshipful thought to think so?
POINS

Why, because you have been so lewd and so much
engraffed to Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY

And to thee.
POINS

By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
with my own ears: the worst that they can say of
me is that I am a second brother and that I am a
proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.
Enter BARDOLPH and Page
PRINCE HENRY

And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a’ had him from
me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
transformed him ape.
BARDOLPH

God save your grace!
PRINCE HENRY

And yours, most noble Bardolph!
BARDOLPH

Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you
be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a
maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is’t such a
matter to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?
Page

A’ calls me e’en now, my lord, through a red
lattice, and I could discern no part of his face
from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and
methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s
new petticoat and so peeped through.
PRINCE HENRY

Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH

Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
Page

Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream, away!
PRINCE HENRY

Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
Page

Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered
of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE HENRY

A crown’s worth of good interpretation: there ’tis,
boy.
POINS

O, that this good blossom could be kept from
cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH

An you do not make him hanged among you, the
gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE HENRY

And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH

Well, my lord. He heard of your grace’s coming to
town: there’s a letter for you.
POINS

Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
martlemas, your master?
BARDOLPH

In bodily health, sir.
POINS

Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but
that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies
not.
PRINCE HENRY

I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.
POINS

[Reads] ‘John Falstaff, knight,’–every man must
know that, as oft as he has occasion to name
himself: even like those that are kin to the king;
for they never prick their finger but they say,
‘There’s some of the king’s blood spilt.’ ‘How
comes that?’ says he, that takes upon him not to
conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower’s
cap, ‘I am the king’s poor cousin, sir.’
PRINCE HENRY

Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
from Japhet. But to the letter.
POINS

[Reads] ‘Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of
the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of
Wales, greeting.’ Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE HENRY

Peace!
POINS

[Reads] ‘I will imitate the honourable Romans in
brevity:’ he sure means brevity in breath,
short-winded. ‘I commend me to thee, I commend
thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with
Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he
swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent
at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.
Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to
say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my
familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters,
and SIR JOHN with all Europe.’
My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
PRINCE HENRY

That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?
POINS

God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
PRINCE HENRY

Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
Is your master here in London?
BARDOLPH

Yea, my lord.
PRINCE HENRY

Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
BARDOLPH

At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY

What company?
Page

Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE HENRY

Sup any women with him?
Page

None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE HENRY

What pagan may that be?
Page

A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.
PRINCE HENRY

Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
POINS

I am your shadow, my lord; I’ll follow you.
PRINCE HENRY

Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
master that I am yet come to town: there’s for
your silence.
BARDOLPH

I have no tongue, sir.
Page

And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE HENRY

Fare you well; go.
Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS

I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint
Alban’s and London.
PRINCE HENRY

How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
POINS

Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE HENRY

From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
Follow me, Ned.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the castle.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY
NORTHUMBERLAND

I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the visage of the times
And be like them to Percy troublesome.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND

I have given over, I will speak no more:
Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.
LADY PERCY

O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!
The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endeared to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s.
For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
For those that could speak low and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion’d others. And him, O wondrous him!
O miracle of men! him did you leave,
Second to none, unseconded by you,
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name
Did seem defensible: so you left him.
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others than with him! let them alone:
The marshal and the archbishop are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,
Have talk’d of Monmouth’s grave.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Beshrew your heart,
Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
With new lamenting ancient oversights.
But I must go and meet with danger there,
Or it will seek me in another place
And find me worse provided.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND

O, fly to Scotland,
Till that the nobles and the armed commons
Have of their puissance made a little taste.
LADY PERCY

If they get ground and vantage of the king,
Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suffer’d: so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.
NORTHUMBERLAND

Come, come, go in with me. ‘Tis with my mind
As with the tide swell’d up unto his height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.
I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The Boar’s-head Tavern in Eastcheap.

Enter two Drawers
First Drawer

What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
Second Drawer

Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
‘I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
old, withered knights.’ It angered him to the
heart: but he hath forgot that.
First Drawer

Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
thou canst find out Sneak’s noise; Mistress
Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
room where they supped is too hot; they’ll come in straight.
Second Drawer

Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
hath brought word.
First Drawer

By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
excellent stratagem.
Second Drawer

I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.
Exit
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET
MISTRESS QUICKLY

I’ faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
truth, la! But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much
canaries; and that’s a marvellous searching wine,
and it perfumes the blood ere one can say ‘What’s
this?’ How do you now?
DOLL TEARSHEET

Better than I was: hem!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Why, that’s well said; a good heart’s worth gold.
Lo, here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF

[Singing] ‘When Arthur first in court,’
–Empty the jordan.
Exit First Drawer
Singing
–‘And was a worthy king.’ How now, Mistress Doll!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF

So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
DOLL TEARSHEET

You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF

You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
make them not.
FALSTAFF

If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
FALSTAFF

‘Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:’ for to serve
bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
chambers bravely,–
DOLL TEARSHEET

Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
i’ good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
cannot one bear with another’s confirmities. What
the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
emptier vessel.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
hogshead? there’s a whole merchant’s venture of
Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
better stuffed in the hold. Come, I’ll be friends
with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
nobody cares.
Re-enter First Drawer
First Drawer

Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below, and would speak with
you.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
hither: it is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
faith; I must live among my neighbours: I’ll no
swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
here: I have not lived all this while, to have
swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.
FALSTAFF

Dost thou hear, hostess?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF

Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me: your ancient
swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
Tisick, the debuty, t’other day; and, as he said to
me, ’twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, ‘I’
good faith, neighbour Quickly,’ says he; Master
Dumbe, our minister, was by then; ‘neighbour
Quickly,’ says he, ‘receive those that are civil;
for,’ said he, ‘you are in an ill name:’ now a’
said so, I can tell whereupon; ‘for,’ says he, ‘you
are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
take heed what guests you receive: receive,’ says
he, ‘no swaggering companions.’ There comes none
here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
no, I’ll no swaggerers.
FALSTAFF

He’s no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i’
faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
greyhound: he’ll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
Call him up, drawer.
Exit First Drawer
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
I warrant you.
DOLL TEARSHEET

So you do, hostess.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen
leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.
Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page
PISTOL

God save you, Sir John!
FALSTAFF

Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.
PISTOL

I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
FALSTAFF

She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Come, I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I’ll
drink no more than will do me good, for no man’s
pleasure, I.
PISTOL

Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
your master.
PISTOL

I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
by this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy
chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God’s
light, with two points on your shoulder? much!
PISTOL

God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
FALSTAFF

No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
taking their names upon you before you have earned
them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God’s
light, these villains will make the word as odious
as the word ‘occupy;’ which was an excellent good
word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
had need look to ‘t.
BARDOLPH

Pray thee, go down, good ancient.
FALSTAFF

Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
PISTOL

Not I I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
tear her: I’ll be revenged of her.
Page

Pray thee, go down.
PISTOL

I’ll see her damned first; to Pluto’s damned lake,
by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
Hiren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; ’tis very late, i’
faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL

These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
Shall we fall foul for toys?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
BARDOLPH

Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.
PISTOL

Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
not Heren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O’ my word, captain, there’s none such here. What
the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
God’s sake, be quiet.
PISTOL

Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give’s some sack.
‘Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.’
Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
Laying down his sword
Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?
FALSTAFF

Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL

Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
the seven stars.
DOLL TEARSHEET

For God’s sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL

Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
FALSTAFF

Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
shilling: nay, an a’ do nothing but speak nothing,
a’ shall be nothing here.
BARDOLPH

Come, get you down stairs.
PISTOL

What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
Snatching up his sword
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Here’s goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF

Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
FALSTAFF

Get you down stairs.
Drawing, and driving PISTOL out
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Here’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear keeping
house, afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights.
So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH
DOLL TEARSHEET

I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal’s gone.
Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

He you not hurt i’ the groin? methought a’ made a
shrewd thrust at your belly.
Re-enter BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF

Have you turned him out o’ doors?
BARDOLPH

Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk: you have hurt him,
sir, i’ the shoulder.
FALSTAFF

A rascal! to brave me!
DOLL TEARSHEET

Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i’faith, I
love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!
FALSTAFF

A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter Music
Page

The music is come, sir.
FALSTAFF

Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
like quicksilver.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I’ faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
when wilt thou leave fighting o’ days and foining
o’ nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised
FALSTAFF

Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death’s-head;
do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Sirrah, what humour’s the prince of?
FALSTAFF

A good shallow young fellow: a’ would have made a
good pantler, a’ would ha’ chipp’d bread well.
DOLL TEARSHEET

They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF

He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit’s as thick
as Tewksbury mustard; there’s no more conceit in him
than is in a mallet.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Why does the prince love him so, then?
FALSTAFF

Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a’
plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and
rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
stories; and such other gambol faculties a’ has,
that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
scales between their avoirdupois.
PRINCE HENRY

Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
POINS

Let’s beat him before his whore.
PRINCE HENRY

Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
clawed like a parrot.
POINS

Is it not strange that desire should so many years
outlive performance?
FALSTAFF

Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE HENRY

Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
says the almanac to that?
POINS

And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
lisping to his master’s old tables, his note-book,
his counsel-keeper.
FALSTAFF

Thou dost give me flattering busses.
DOLL TEARSHEET

By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
FALSTAFF

I am old, I am old.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young
boy of them all.
FALSTAFF

What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
money o’ Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
merry song, come: it grows late; we’ll to bed.
Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.
DOLL TEARSHEET

By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping, an thou
sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
till thy return: well, harken at the end.
FALSTAFF

Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE HENRY

POINS

Anon, anon, sir.
Coming forward
FALSTAFF

Ha! a bastard son of the king’s? And art not thou
Poins his brother?
PRINCE HENRY

Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
dost thou lead!
FALSTAFF

A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.
PRINCE HENRY

Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?
FALSTAFF

Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
DOLL TEARSHEET

How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
POINS

My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
PRINCE HENRY

You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
civil gentlewoman!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
by my troth.
FALSTAFF

Didst thou hear me?
PRINCE HENRY

Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
by Gad’s-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
FALSTAFF

No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
PRINCE HENRY

I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
and then I know how to handle you.
FALSTAFF

No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honour, no abuse.
PRINCE HENRY

Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
bread-chipper and I know not what?
FALSTAFF

No abuse, Hal.
POINS

No abuse?
FALSTAFF

No abuse, Ned, i’ the world; honest Ned, none. I
dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
have done the part of a careful friend and a true
subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.
PRINCE HENRY

See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
nose, of the wicked?
POINS

Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF

The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
and his face is Lucifer’s privy-kitchen, where he
doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
there is a good angel about him; but the devil
outbids him too.
PRINCE HENRY

For the women?
FALSTAFF

For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
whether she be damned for that, I know not.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

No, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF

No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

All victuallers do so; what’s a joint of mutton or
two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE HENRY

You, gentlewoman,-
DOLL TEARSHEET

What says your grace?
FALSTAFF

His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
Knocking within
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.
Enter PETO
PRINCE HENRY

Peto, how now! what news?
PETO

The king your father is at Westminster:
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north: and, as I came along,
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY

By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF

Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within
More knocking at the door!
Re-enter BARDOLPH
How now! what’s the matter?
BARDOLPH

You must away to court, sir, presently;
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF

[To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
I will see you again ere I go.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,–
well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF

Farewell, farewell.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
honester and truer-hearted man,–well, fare thee well.
BARDOLPH

[Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

What’s the matter?
BARDOLPH

[Within] Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
She comes blubbered
Yea, will you come, Doll?
Exeunt

ACT III
SCENE I. Westminster. The palace.

Enter KING HENRY IV in his nightgown, with a Page
KING HENRY IV

Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But, ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters,
And well consider of them; make good speed.
Exit Page
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common ‘larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Enter WARWICK and SURREY
WARWICK

Many good morrows to your majesty!
KING HENRY IV

Is it good morrow, lords?
WARWICK

‘Tis one o’clock, and past.
KING HENRY IV

Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?
WARWICK

We have, my liege.
KING HENRY IV

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
WARWICK

It is but as a body yet distemper’d;
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d.
KING HENRY IV

O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
‘Tis not ‘ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toil’d in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by–
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember–
To WARWICK
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then cheque’d and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;’
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow’d the state
That I and greatness were compell’d to kiss:
‘The time shall come,’ thus did he follow it,
‘The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption:’ so went on,
Foretelling this same time’s condition
And the division of our amity.
WARWICK

There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
KING HENRY IV

Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities:
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say the bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.
WARWICK

It cannot be, my lord;
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear’d. Please it your grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason’d hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.
KING HENRY IV

I will take your counsel:
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW’S house.

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, a Servant or two with them
SHALLOW

Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand,
sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by
the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE

Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW

And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your
fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
SILENCE

Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!
SHALLOW

By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is
become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?
SILENCE

Indeed, sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW

A’ must, then, to the inns o’ court shortly. I was
once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will
talk of mad Shallow yet.
SILENCE

You were called ‘lusty Shallow’ then, cousin.
SHALLOW

By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would
have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the inns o’ court again: and
I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were
and had the best of them all at commandment. Then
was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
SILENCE

This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?
SHALLOW

The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
Skogan’s head at the court-gate, when a’ was a
crack not thus high: and the very same day did I
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer,
behind Gray’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
have spent! and to see how many of my old
acquaintance are dead!
SILENCE

We shall all follow, cousin.
SHADOW

Certain, ’tis certain; very sure, very sure: death,
as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall
die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
SILENCE

By my troth, I was not there.
SHALLOW

Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living
yet?
SILENCE

Dead, sir.
SHALLOW

Jesu, Jesu, dead! a’ drew a good bow; and dead! a’
shot a fine shoot: John a Gaunt loved him well, and
betted much money on his head. Dead! a’ would have
clapped i’ the clout at twelve score; and carried
you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a
half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to
see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE

Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be
worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW

And is old Double dead?
SILENCE

Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think.
Enter BARDOLPH and one with him
BARDOLPH

Good morrow, honest gentlemen: I beseech you, which
is Justice Shallow?
SHALLOW

I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this
county, and one of the king’s justices of th e peace:
What is your good pleasure with me?
BARDOLPH

My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain,
Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and
a most gallant leader.
SHALLOW

He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword
man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how my
lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH

Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than
with a wife.
SHALLOW

It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
indeed too. Better accommodated! it is good; yea,
indeed, is it: good phrases are surely, and ever
were, very commendable. Accommodated! it comes of
‘accommodo’ very good; a good phrase.
BARDOLPH

Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
being, whereby a’ may be thought to be accommodated;
which is an excellent thing.
SHALLOW

It is very just.
Enter FALSTAFF
Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
hand, give me your worship’s good hand: by my
troth, you like well and bear your years very well:
welcome, good Sir John.
FALSTAFF

I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert
Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think?
SHALLOW

No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.
FALSTAFF

Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of
the peace.
SILENCE

Your good-worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF

Fie! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?
SHALLOW

Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
FALSTAFF

Let me see them, I beseech you.
SHALLOW

Where’s the roll? where’s the roll? where’s the
roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so:
yea, marry, sir: Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as
I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
see; where is Mouldy?
MOULDY

Here, an’t please you.
SHALLOW

What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow;
young, strong, and of good friends.
FALSTAFF

Is thy name Mouldy?
MOULDY

Yea, an’t please you.
FALSTAFF

‘Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW

Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i’ faith! Things that
are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith,
well said, Sir John, very well said.
FALSTAFF

Prick him.
MOULDY

I was pricked well enough before, an you could have
let me alone: my old dame will be undone now for
one to do her husbandry and her drudgery: you need
not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter
to go out than I.
FALSTAFF

Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is
time you were spent.
MOULDY

Spent!
SHALLOW

Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where
you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see:
Simon Shadow!
FALSTAFF

Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he’s like
to be a cold soldier.
SHALLOW

Where’s Shadow?
SHADOW

Here, sir.
FALSTAFF

Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW

My mother’s son, sir.
FALSTAFF

Thy mother’s son! like enough, and thy father’s
shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of
the male: it is often so, indeed; but much of the
father’s substance!
SHALLOW

Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF

Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have
a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.
SHALLOW

Thomas Wart!
FALSTAFF

Where’s he?
WART

Here, sir.
FALSTAFF

Is thy name Wart?
WART

Yea, sir.
FALSTAFF

Thou art a very ragged wart.
SHALLOW

Shall I prick him down, Sir John?
FALSTAFF

It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon
his back and the whole frame stands upon pins:
prick him no more.
SHALLOW

Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I
commend you well. Francis Feeble!
FEEBLE

Here, sir.
FALSTAFF

What trade art thou, Feeble?
FEEBLE

A woman’s tailor, sir.
SHALLOW

Shall I prick him, sir?
FALSTAFF

You may: but if he had been a man’s tailor, he’ld
ha’ pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in
an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a woman’s petticoat?
FEEBLE

I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
FALSTAFF

Well said, good woman’s tailor! well said,
courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
woman’s tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.
FEEBLE

I would Wart might have gone, sir.
FALSTAFF

I would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou mightst
mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him
to a private soldier that is the leader of so many
thousands: let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.
FEEBLE

It shall suffice, sir.
FALSTAFF

I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
SHALLOW

Peter Bullcalf o’ the green!
FALSTAFF

Yea, marry, let’s see Bullcalf.
BULLCALF

Here, sir.
FALSTAFF

‘Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf
till he roar again.
BULLCALF

O Lord! good my lord captain,–
FALSTAFF

What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?
BULLCALF

O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.
FALSTAFF

What disease hast thou?
BULLCALF

A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught
with ringing in the king’s affairs upon his
coronation-day, sir.
FALSTAFF

Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we wilt
have away thy cold; and I will take such order that
my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?
SHALLOW

Here is two more called than your number, you must
have but four here, sir: and so, I pray you, go in
with me to dinner.
FALSTAFF

Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night
in the windmill in Saint George’s field?
FALSTAFF

No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.
SHALLOW

Ha! ’twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
FALSTAFF

She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF

Never, never; she would always say she could not
abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She
was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?
FALSTAFF

Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
certain she’s old; and had Robin Nightwork by old
Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.
SILENCE

That’s fifty-five year ago.
SHALLOW

Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
FALSTAFF

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have: our watch-word was ‘Hem boys!’
Come, let’s to dinner; come, let’s to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices
BULLCALF

Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend;
and here’s four Harry ten shillings in French crowns
for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be
hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir,
I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling,
and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with
my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own
part, so much.
BARDOLPH

Go to; stand aside.
MOULDY

And, good master corporal captain, for my old
dame’s sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do
any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old,
and cannot help herself: You shall have forty, sir.
BARDOLPH

Go to; stand aside.
FEEBLE

By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once: we
owe God a death: I’ll ne’er bear a base mind:
an’t be my destiny, so; an’t be not, so: no man is
too good to serve’s prince; and let it go which way
it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.
BARDOLPH

Well said; thou’rt a good fellow.
FEEBLE

Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.
Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices
FALSTAFF

Come, sir, which men shall I have?
SHALLOW

Four of which you please.
BARDOLPH

Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free
Mouldy and Bullcalf.
FALSTAFF

Go to; well.
SHALLOW

Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
FALSTAFF

Do you choose for me.
SHALLOW

Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.
FALSTAFF

Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home
till you are past service: and for your part,
Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.
SHALLOW

Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are
your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.
FALSTAFF

Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart; you see what a
ragged appearance it is; a’ shall charge you and
discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s
hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets
on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced
fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no
mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;
how swiftly will this Feeble the woman’s tailor run
off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.
BARDOLPH

Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.
FALSTAFF

Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go
to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a
little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i’
faith, Wart; thou’rt a good scab: hold, there’s a
tester for thee.
SHALLOW

He is not his craft’s master; he doth not do it
right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at
Clement’s Inn–I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s
show,–there was a little quiver fellow, and a’
would manage you his piece thus; and a’ would about
and about, and come you in and come you in: ‘rah,
tah, tah,’ would a’ say; ‘bounce’ would a’ say; and
away again would a’ go, and again would a’ come: I
shall ne’er see such a fellow.
FALSTAFF

These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God
keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words
with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give
the soldiers coats.
SHALLOW

Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your
affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit
our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;
peradventure I will with ye to the court.
FALSTAFF

‘Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW

Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
FALSTAFF

Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
Exeunt Justices
On, Bardolph; lead the men away.
Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, & c
As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do
see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This
same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he
hath done about Turnbull Street: and every third
word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s
tribute. I do remember him at Clement’s Inn like a
man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a’
was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked
radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it
with a knife: a’ was so forlorn, that his
dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a’
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a
monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a’ came
ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those
tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the
carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger
become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a
Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and
I’ll be sworn a’ ne’er saw him but once in the
Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding
among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John a
Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have
thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the
case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I’ll
be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall
go hard but I will make him a philosopher’s two
stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the
old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I
may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.
Exit

ACT IV
SCENE I. Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, LORD HASTINGS, and others
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

What is this forest call’d?
HASTINGS

‘Tis Gaultree Forest, an’t shall please your grace.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth
To know the numbers of our enemies.
HASTINGS

We have sent forth already.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

‘Tis well done.
My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have received
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
That your attempts may overlive the hazard
And fearful melting of their opposite.
MOWBRAY

Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
And dash themselves to pieces.
Enter a Messenger
HASTINGS

Now, what news?
Messenger

West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy;
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
MOWBRAY

The just proportion that we gave them out
Let us sway on and face them in the field.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
Enter WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY

I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND

Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace:
What doth concern your coming?
WESTMORELAND

Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanced by boys and beggary,
I say, if damn’d commotion so appear’d,
In his true, native and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch’d,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor’d,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
To a trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician,
Nor do I as an enemy to peace
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But rather show awhile like fearful war,
To diet rank minds sick of happiness
And purge the obstructions which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh’d
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which long ere this we offer’d to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong’d and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute’s instance, present now,
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
Not to break peace or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
WESTMORELAND

When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn’d to grate on you,
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
And consecrate commotion’s bitter edge?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORELAND

There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
MOWBRAY

Why not to him in part, and to us all
That feel the bruises of the days before,
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
WESTMORELAND

O, my good Lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet for your part, it not appears to me
Either from the king or in the present time
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: were you not restored
To all the Duke of Norfolk’s signories,
Your noble and right well remember’d father’s?
MOWBRAY

What thing, in honour, had my father lost,
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
Was force perforce compell’d to banish him:
And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,
Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparking through sights of steel
And the loud trumpet blowing them together,
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay’d
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw;
Then threw he down himself and all their lives
That by indictment and by dint of sword
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
WESTMORELAND

You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentlemen:
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
But if your father had been victor there,
He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
And bless’d and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.
MOWBRAY

But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
WESTMORELAND

Mowbray, you overween to take it so;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken our army lies,
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason will our heart should be as good
Say you not then our offer is compell’d.
MOWBRAY

Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
WESTMORELAND

That argues but the shame of your offence:
A rotten case abides no handling.
HASTINGS

Hath the Prince John a full commission,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
WESTMORELAND

That is intended in the general’s name:
I muse you make so slight a question.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances:
Each several article herein redress’d,
All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew’d to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORELAND

This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

My lord, we will do so.
Exit WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY

There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS

Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY

Yea, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow’d with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear’d to execution.
HASTINGS

Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement:
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

‘Tis very true:
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
MOWBRAY

Be it so.
Here is return’d my Lord of Westmoreland.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
WESTMORELAND

The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance ‘tween our armies.
MOWBRAY

Your grace of York, in God’s name then, set forward.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come.
Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the forest.

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, HASTINGS, and others: from the other side, Prince John of LANCASTER, and WESTMORELAND; Officers, and others with them
LANCASTER

You are well encounter’d here, my cousin Mowbray:
Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
My Lord of York, it better show’d with you
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword and life to death.
That man that sits within a monarch’s heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,
It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us the speaker in his parliament;
To us the imagined voice of God himself;
The very opener and intelligencer
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven
And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
But you misuse the reverence of your place,
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince’s name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have ta’en up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here up-swarm’d them.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Good my Lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father’s peace;
But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
The time misorder’d doth, in common sense,
Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,
To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
The parcels and particulars of our grief,
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm’d asleep
With grant of our most just and right desires,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
MOWBRAY

If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
To the last man.
HASTINGS

And though we here fall down,
We have supplies to second our attempt:
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
And so success of mischief shall be born
And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.
LANCASTER

You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
To sound the bottom of the after-times.
WESTMORELAND

Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
How far forth you do like their articles.
LANCASTER

I like them all, and do allow them well,
And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father’s purposes have been mistook,
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.
My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress’d;
Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours: and here between the armies
Let’s drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

I take your princely word for these redresses.
LANCASTER

I give it you, and will maintain my word:
And thereupon I drink unto your grace.
HASTINGS

Go, captain, and deliver to the army
This news of peace: let them have pay, and part:
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
Exit Officer
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND

I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains
I have bestow’d to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely: but my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

I do not doubt you.
WESTMORELAND

I am glad of it.
Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
MOWBRAY

You wish me health in very happy season;
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Against ill chances men are ever merry;
But heaviness foreruns the good event.
WESTMORELAND

Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus, ‘some good thing comes
to-morrow.’
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY

So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
Shouts within
LANCASTER

The word of peace is render’d: hark, how they shout!
MOWBRAY

This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
LANCASTER

Go, my lord,
And let our army be discharged too.
Exit WESTMORELAND
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
March, by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have coped withal.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Go, good Lord Hastings,
And, ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
Exit HASTINGS
LANCASTER

I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORELAND

The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
LANCASTER

They know their duties.
Re-enter HASTINGS
HASTINGS

My lord, our army is dispersed already;
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
WESTMORELAND

Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
Of capitol treason I attach you both.
MOWBRAY

Is this proceeding just and honourable?
WESTMORELAND

Is your assembly so?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Will you thus break your faith?
LANCASTER

I pawn’d thee none:
I promised you redress of these same grievances
Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
I will perform with a most Christian care.
But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter’d stray:
God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason’s true bed and yielder up of breath.
Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the forest.

Alarum. Excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLEVILE, meeting
FALSTAFF

What’s your name, sir? of what condition are you,
and of what place, I pray?
COLEVILE

I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the dale.
FALSTAFF

Well, then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your
degree, and your place the dale: Colevile shall be
still your name, a traitor your degree, and the
dungeon your place, a place deep enough; so shall
you be still Colevile of the dale.
COLEVILE

Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
FALSTAFF

As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do ye
yield, sir? or shall I sweat for you? if I do
sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they
weep for thy death: therefore rouse up fear and
trembling, and do observance to my mercy.
COLEVILE

I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that
thought yield me.
FALSTAFF

I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of
mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other
word but my name. An I had but a belly of any
indifference, I were simply the most active fellow
in Europe: my womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me.
Here comes our general.
Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND, BLUNT, and others
LANCASTER

The heat is past; follow no further now:
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
Exit WESTMORELAND
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When every thing is ended, then you come:
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows’ back.
FALSTAFF

I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I
never knew yet but rebuke and cheque was the reward
of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a
bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the
expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with
the very extremest inch of possibility; I have
foundered nine score and odd posts: and here,
travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and
immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the
dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy.
But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I
may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,
‘I came, saw, and overcame.’
LANCASTER

It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
FALSTAFF

I know not: here he is, and here I yield him: and
I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the
rest of this day’s deeds; or, by the Lord, I will
have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own
picture on the top on’t, Colevile kissing my foot:
to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not
all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the
clear sky of fame o’ershine you as much as the full
moon doth the cinders of the element, which show
like pins’ heads to her, believe not the word of
the noble: therefore let me have right, and let
desert mount.
LANCASTER

Thine’s too heavy to mount.
FALSTAFF

Let it shine, then.
LANCASTER

Thine’s too thick to shine.
FALSTAFF

Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me
good, and call it what you will.
LANCASTER

Is thy name Colevile?
COLEVILE

It is, my lord.
LANCASTER

A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.
FALSTAFF

And a famous true subject took him.
COLEVILE

I am, my lord, but as my betters are
That led me hither: had they been ruled by me,
You should have won them dearer than you have.
FALSTAFF

I know not how they sold themselves: but thou, like
a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I
thank thee for thee.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
LANCASTER

Now, have you left pursuit?
WESTMORELAND

Retreat is made and execution stay’d.
LANCASTER

Send Colevile with his confederates
To York, to present execution:
Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.
Exeunt BLUNT and others with COLEVILE
And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords:
I hear the king my father is sore sick:
Our news shall go before us to his majesty,
Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him,
And we with sober speed will follow you.
FALSTAFF

My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go
Through Gloucestershire: and, when you come to court,
Stand my good lord, pray, in your good report.
LANCASTER

Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condition,
Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
Exeunt all but Falstaff
FALSTAFF

I would you had but the wit: ’twere better than
your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-
blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make
him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine.
There’s never none of these demure boys come to any
proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood,
and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a
kind of male green-sickness; and then when they
marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools
and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for
inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold
operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy
vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,
quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the
voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
excellent wit. The second property of your
excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood;
which, before cold and settled, left the liver
white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes
it course from the inwards to the parts extreme:
it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
warning to all the rest of this little kingdom,
man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain,
the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour
comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and
learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till
sack commences it and sets it in act and use.
Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for
the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land,
manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile
sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If
I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I
would teach them should be, to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter BARDOLPH
How now Bardolph?
BARDOLPH

The army is discharged all and gone.
FALSTAFF

Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire; and
there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire:
I have him already tempering between my finger and
my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.
Exeunt

SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.

Enter KING HENRY IV, the Princes Thomas of CLARENCE and Humphrey of GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others
KING HENRY IV

Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is address’d, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And every thing lies level to our wish:
Only, we want a little personal strength;
And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of government.
WARWICK

Both which we doubt not but your majesty
Shall soon enjoy.
KING HENRY IV

Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
Where is the prince your brother?
GLOUCESTER

I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
KING HENRY IV

And how accompanied?
GLOUCESTER

I do not know, my lord.
KING HENRY IV

Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?
GLOUCESTER

No, my good lord; he is in presence here.
CLARENCE

What would my lord and father?
KING HENRY IV

Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?
He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas;
Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy,
And noble offices thou mayst effect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
By seeming cold or careless of his will;
For he is gracious, if he be observed:
He hath a tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:
Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he’s flint,
As humorous as winter and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When thou perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
But, being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion–
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in–
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
CLARENCE

I shall observe him with all care and love.
KING HENRY IV

Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
CLARENCE

He is not there to-day; he dines in London.
KING HENRY IV

And how accompanied? canst thou tell that?
CLARENCE

With Poins, and other his continual followers.
KING HENRY IV

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;
And he, the noble image of my youth,
Is overspread with them: therefore my grief
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death:
The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape
In forms imaginary the unguided days
And rotten times that you shall look upon
When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
When means and lavish manners meet together,
O, with what wings shall his affections fly
Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!
WARWICK

My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:
The prince but studies his companions
Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
‘Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be look’d upon and learn’d; which once attain’d,
Your highness knows, comes to no further use
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
The prince will in the perfectness of time
Cast off his followers; and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the lives of others,
Turning past evils to advantages.
KING HENRY IV

‘Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion.
Enter WESTMORELAND
Who’s here? Westmoreland?
WESTMORELAND

Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
Added to that that I am to deliver!
Prince John your son doth kiss your grace’s hand:
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings and all
Are brought to the correction of your law;
There is not now a rebel’s sword unsheath’d
But peace puts forth her olive every where.
The manner how this action hath been borne
Here at more leisure may your highness read,
With every course in his particular.
KING HENRY IV

O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.
Enter HARCOURT
Look, here’s more news.
HARCOURT

From enemies heaven keep your majesty;
And, when they stand against you, may they fall
As those that I am come to tell you of!
The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
With a great power of English and of Scots
Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
The manner and true order of the fight
This packet, please it you, contains at large.
KING HENRY IV

And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach and no food;
Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast
And takes away the stomach; such are the rich,
That have abundance and enjoy it not.
I should rejoice now at this happy news;
And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy:
O me! come near me; now I am much ill.
GLOUCESTER

Comfort, your majesty!
CLARENCE

O my royal father!
WESTMORELAND

My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.
WARWICK

Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits
Are with his highness very ordinary.
Stand from him. Give him air; he’ll straight be well.
CLARENCE

No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs:
The incessant care and labour of his mind
Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in
So thin that life looks through and will break out.
GLOUCESTER

The people fear me; for they do observe
Unfather’d heirs and loathly births of nature:
The seasons change their manners, as the year
Had found some months asleep and leap’d them over.
CLARENCE

The river hath thrice flow’d, no ebb between;
And the old folk, time’s doting chronicles,
Say it did so a little time before
That our great-grandsire, Edward, sick’d and died.
WARWICK

Speak lower, princes, for the king recovers.
GLOUCESTER

This apoplexy will certain be his end.
KING HENRY IV

I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence
Into some other chamber: softly, pray.

SCENE V. Another chamber.

KING HENRY IV lying on a bed: CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in attendance
KING HENRY IV

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
Unless some dull and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
WARWICK

Call for the music in the other room.
KING HENRY IV

Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
CLARENCE

His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
WARWICK

Less noise, less noise!
Enter PRINCE HENRY
PRINCE HENRY

Who saw the Duke of Clarence?
CLARENCE

I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
PRINCE HENRY

How now! rain within doors, and none abroad!
How doth the king?
GLOUCESTER

Exceeding ill.
PRINCE HENRY

Heard he the good news yet?
Tell it him.
GLOUCESTER

He alter’d much upon the hearing it.
PRINCE HENRY

If he be sick with joy, he’ll recover without physic.
WARWICK

Not so much noise, my lords: sweet prince,
speak low;
The king your father is disposed to sleep.
CLARENCE

Let us withdraw into the other room.
WARWICK

Will’t please your grace to go along with us?
PRINCE HENRY

No; I will sit and watch here by the king.
Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polish’d perturbation! golden care!
That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath
There lies a downy feather which stirs not:
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English kings. Thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously:
My due from thee is this imperial crown,
Which, as immediate as thy place and blood,
Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,
Which God shall guard: and put the world’s whole strength
Into one giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honour from me: this from thee
Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.
Exit
KING HENRY IV

Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!
Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest
CLARENCE

Doth the king call?
WARWICK

What would your majesty? How fares your grace?
KING HENRY IV

Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?
CLARENCE

We left the prince my brother here, my liege,
Who undertook to sit and watch by you.
KING HENRY IV

The Prince of Wales! Where is he? let me see him:
He is not here.
WARWICK

This door is open; he is gone this way.
GLOUCESTER

He came not through the chamber where we stay’d.
KING HENRY IV

Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?
WARWICK

When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.
KING HENRY IV

The prince hath ta’en it hence: go, seek him out.
Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
My sleep my death?
Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
Exit WARWICK
This part of his conjoins with my disease,
And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
For this the foolish over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care,
Their bones with industry;
For this they have engrossed and piled up
The canker’d heaps of strange-achieved gold;
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
When, like the bee, culling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs pack’d with wax, our mouths with honey,
We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yield his engrossments to the ending father.
Re-enter WARWICK
Now, where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determined me?
WARWICK

My lord, I found the prince in the next room,
Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow
That tyranny, which never quaff’d but blood,
Would, by beholding him, have wash’d his knife
With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
KING HENRY IV

But wherefore did he take away the crown?
Re-enter PRINCE HENRY
Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
Exeunt WARWICK and the rest
PRINCE HENRY

I never thought to hear you speak again.
KING HENRY IV

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
Thou seek’st the greatness that will o’erwhelm thee.
Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a wind
That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.
Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours
Were thine without offence; and at my death
Thou hast seal’d up my expectation:
Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
To stab at half an hour of my life.
What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:
Only compound me with forgotten dust
Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
For now a time is come to mock at form:
Harry the Fifth is crown’d: up, vanity!
Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness!
Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
England shall double gild his treble guilt,
England shall give him office, honour, might;
For the fifth Harry from curb’d licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
PRINCE HENRY

O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestall’d this dear and deep rebuke
Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
The course of it so far. There is your crown;
And He that wears the crown immortally
Long guard it yours! If I affect it more
Than as your honour and as your renown,
Let me no more from this obedience rise,
Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending.
God witness with me, when I here came in,
And found no course of breath within your majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die
And never live to show the incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto this crown as having sense,
And thus upbraided it: ‘The care on thee depending
Hath fed upon the body of my father;
Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold:
Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
Preserving life in medicine potable;
But thou, most fine, most honour’d: most renown’d,
Hast eat thy bearer up.’ Thus, my most royal liege,
Accusing it, I put it on my head,
To try with it, as with an enemy
That had before my face murder’d my father,
The quarrel of a true inheritor.
But if it did infect my blood with joy,
Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;
If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
Did with the least affection of a welcome
Give entertainment to the might of it,
Let God for ever keep it from my head
And make me as the poorest vassal is
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!
KING HENRY IV

O my son,
God put it in thy mind to take it hence,
That thou mightst win the more thy father’s love,
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!
Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed;
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
By what by-paths and indirect crook’d ways
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head.
To thee it shall descend with bitter quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seem’d in me
But as an honour snatch’d with boisterous hand,
And I had many living to upbraid
My gain of it by their assistances;
Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears
Thou see’st with peril I have answered;
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument: and now my death
Changes the mode; for what in me was purchased,
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;
So thou the garland wear’st successively.
Yet, though thou stand’st more sure than I could do,
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
Have but their stings and teeth newly ta’en out;
By whose fell working I was first advanced
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displaced: which to avoid,
I cut them off; and had a purpose now
To lead out many to the Holy Land,
Lest rest and lying still might make them look
Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so
That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
How I came by the crown, O God forgive;
And grant it may with thee in true peace live!
PRINCE HENRY

My gracious liege,
You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I with more than with a common pain
‘Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.
Enter Lord John of LANCASTER
KING HENRY IV

Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.
LANCASTER

Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!
KING HENRY IV

Thou bring’st me happiness and peace, son John;
But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
From this bare wither’d trunk: upon thy sight
My worldly business makes a period.
Where is my Lord of Warwick?
PRINCE HENRY

My Lord of Warwick!
Enter WARWICK, and others
KING HENRY IV

Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
WARWICK

‘Tis call’d Jerusalem, my noble lord.
KING HENRY IV

Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
But bear me to that chamber; there I’ll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
Exeunt

ACT V
SCENE I. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW’S house.

Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and Page
SHALLOW

By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.
What, Davy, I say!
FALSTAFF

You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.
SHALLOW

I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused;
excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse
shall serve; you shall not be excused. Why, Davy!
Enter DAVY
DAVY

Here, sir.
SHALLOW

Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, let me see, Davy; let me
see, Davy; let me see: yea, marry, William cook,
bid him come hither. Sir John, you shall not be excused.
DAVY

Marry, sir, thus; those precepts cannot be served:
and, again, sir, shall we sow the headland with wheat?
SHALLOW

With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook: are
there no young pigeons?
DAVY

Yes, sir. Here is now the smith’s note for shoeing
and plough-irons.
SHALLOW

Let it be cast and paid. Sir John, you shall not be excused.
DAVY

Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must need be
had: and, sir, do you mean to stop any of William’s
wages, about the sack he lost the other day at
Hinckley fair?
SHALLOW

A’ shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple
of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any
pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.
DAVY

Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?
SHALLOW

Yea, Davy. I will use him well: a friend i’ the
court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men
well, Davy; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite.
DAVY

No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they
have marvellous foul linen.
SHALLOW

Well conceited, Davy: about thy business, Davy.
DAVY

I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of
Woncot against Clement Perkes of the hill.
SHALLOW

There is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor:
that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.
DAVY

I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but
yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some
countenance at his friend’s request. An honest
man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave
is not. I have served your worship truly, sir,
this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in
a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I
have but a very little credit with your worship. The
knave is mine honest friend, sir; therefore, I
beseech your worship, let him be countenanced.
SHALLOW

Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy.
Exit DAVY
Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off
with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.
BARDOLPH

I am glad to see your worship.
SHALLOW

I thank thee with all my heart, kind
Master Bardolph: and welcome, my tall fellow.
To the Page
Come, Sir John.
FALSTAFF

I’ll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.
Exit SHALLOW
Bardolph, look to our horses.
Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page
If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four
dozen of such bearded hermits’ staves as Master
Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the
semblable coherence of his men’s spirits and his:
they, by observing of him, do bear themselves like
foolish justices; he, by conversing with them, is
turned into a justice-like serving-man: their
spirits are so married in conjunction with the
participation of society that they flock together in
consent, like so many wild-geese. If I had a suit
to Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the
imputation of being near their master: if to his
men, I would curry with Master Shallow that no man
could better command his servants. It is certain
that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is
caught, as men take diseases, one of another:
therefore let men take heed of their company. I
will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to
keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing
out of six fashions, which is four terms, or two
actions, and a’ shall laugh without intervallums. O,
it is much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest
with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never
had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him
laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!
SHALLOW

[Within] Sir John!
FALSTAFF

I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.
Exit

SCENE II. Westminster. The palace.

Enter WARWICK and the Lord Chief-Justice, meeting
WARWICK

How now, my lord chief-justice! whither away?
Lord Chief-Justice How doth the king?
WARWICK

Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.
Lord Chief-Justice I hope, not dead.
WARWICK

He’s walk’d the way of nature;
And to our purposes he lives no more.
Lord Chief-Justice I would his majesty had call’d me with him:
The service that I truly did his life
Hath left me open to all injuries.
WARWICK

Indeed I think the young king loves you not.
Lord Chief-Justice I know he doth not, and do arm myself
To welcome the condition of the time,
Which cannot look more hideously upon me
Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.
Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WESTMORELAND, and others
WARWICK

Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry:
O that the living Harry had the temper
Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen!
How many nobles then should hold their places
That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!
Lord Chief-Justice O God, I fear all will be overturn’d!
LANCASTER

Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.
GLOUCESTER

CLARENCE

Good morrow, cousin.
LANCASTER

We meet like men that had forgot to speak.
WARWICK

We do remember; but our argument
Is all too heavy to admit much talk.
LANCASTER

Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy.
Lord Chief-Justice Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!
GLOUCESTER

O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;
And I dare swear you borrow not that face
Of seeming sorrow, it is sure your own.
LANCASTER

Though no man be assured what grace to find,
You stand in coldest expectation:
I am the sorrier; would ’twere otherwise.
CLARENCE

Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;
Which swims against your stream of quality.
Lord Chief-Justice Sweet princes, what I did, I did in honour,
Led by the impartial conduct of my soul:
And never shall you see that I will beg
A ragged and forestall’d remission.
If truth and upright innocency fail me,
I’ll to the king my master that is dead,
And tell him who hath sent me after him.
WARWICK

Here comes the prince.
Enter KING HENRY V, attended
Lord Chief-Justice Good morrow; and God save your majesty!
KING HENRY V

This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think.
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
This is the English, not the Turkish court;
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
For, by my faith, it very well becomes you:
Sorrow so royally in you appears
That I will deeply put the fashion on
And wear it in my heart: why then, be sad;
But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
I’ll be your father and your brother too;
Let me but bear your love, I ‘ll bear your cares:
Yet weep that Harry’s dead; and so will I;
But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears
By number into hours of happiness.
Princes

We hope no other from your majesty.
KING HENRY V

You all look strangely on me: and you most;
You are, I think, assured I love you not.
Lord Chief-Justice I am assured, if I be measured rightly,
Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
KING HENRY V

No!
How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
May this be wash’d in Lethe, and forgotten?
Lord Chief-Justice I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me:
And, in the administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your highness pleased to forget my place,
The majesty and power of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented,
And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority
And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought,
To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
To trip the course of law and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your person;
Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image
And mock your workings in a second body.
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
Be now the father and propose a son,
Hear your own dignity so much profaned,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
Behold yourself so by a son disdain’d;
And then imagine me taking your part
And in your power soft silencing your son:
After this cold considerance, sentence me;
And, as you are a king, speak in your state
What I have done that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege’s sovereignty.
KING HENRY V

You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;
Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
And I do wish your honours may increase,
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you and obey you, as I did.
So shall I live to speak my father’s words:
‘Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
That dares do justice on my proper son;
And not less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hands of justice.’ You did commit me:
For which, I do commit into your hand
The unstained sword that you have used to bear;
With this remembrance, that you use the same
With the like bold, just and impartial spirit
As you have done ‘gainst me. There is my hand.
You shall be as a father to my youth:
My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well-practised wise directions.
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
My father is gone wild into his grave,
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world,
To frustrate prophecies and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flow’d in vanity till now:
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of parliament:
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best govern’d nation;
That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us;
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
Our coronation done, we will accite,
As I before remember’d, all our state:
And, God consigning to my good intents,
No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
God shorten Harry’s happy life one day!
Exeunt

SCENE III. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW’S orchard.

Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, DAVY, BARDOLPH, and the Page
SHALLOW

Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour,
we will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing,
with a dish of caraways, and so forth: come,
cousin Silence: and then to bed.
FALSTAFF

‘Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.
SHALLOW

Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all,
Sir John: marry, good air. Spread, Davy; spread,
Davy; well said, Davy.
FALSTAFF

This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your
serving-man and your husband.
SHALLOW

A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet,
Sir John: by the mass, I have drunk too much sack
at supper: a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit
down: come, cousin.
SILENCE

Ah, sirrah! quoth-a, we shall
Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,
Singing
And praise God for the merry year;
When flesh is cheap and females dear,
And lusty lads roam here and there
So merrily,
And ever among so merrily.
FALSTAFF

There’s a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I’ll
give you a health for that anon.
SHALLOW

Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.
DAVY

Sweet sir, sit; I’ll be with you anon. most sweet
sir, sit. Master page, good master page, sit.
Proface! What you want in meat, we’ll have in drink:
but you must bear; the heart’s all.
Exit
SHALLOW

Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier
there, be merry.
SILENCE

Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;
Singing
For women are shrews, both short and tall:
‘Tis merry in hall when beards wag all,
And welcome merry Shrove-tide.
Be merry, be merry.
FALSTAFF

I did not think Master Silence had been a man of
this mettle.
SILENCE

Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.
Re-enter DAVY
DAVY

There’s a dish of leather-coats for you.
To BARDOLPH
SHALLOW

Davy!
DAVY

Your worship! I’ll be with you straight.
To BARDOLPH
A cup of wine, sir?
SILENCE

A cup of wine that’s brisk and fine,
Singing
And drink unto the leman mine;
And a merry heart lives long-a.
FALSTAFF

Well said, Master Silence.
SILENCE

An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o’ the night.
FALSTAFF

Health and long life to you, Master Silence.
SILENCE

Fill the cup, and let it come;
Singing
I’ll pledge you a mile to the bottom.
SHALLOW

Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest any
thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.
Welcome, my little tiny thief.
To the Page
And welcome indeed too. I’ll drink to Master
Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London.
DAVY

I hove to see London once ere I die.
BARDOLPH

An I might see you there, Davy,–
SHALLOW

By the mass, you’ll crack a quart together, ha!
Will you not, Master Bardolph?
BARDOLPH

Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.
SHALLOW

By God’s liggens, I thank thee: the knave will
stick by thee, I can assure thee that. A’ will not
out; he is true bred.
BARDOLPH

And I’ll stick by him, sir.
SHALLOW

Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry.
Knocking within
Look who’s at door there, ho! who knocks?
Exit DAVY
FALSTAFF

Why, now you have done me right.
To SILENCE, seeing him take off a bumper
SILENCE

[Singing]
Do me right,
And dub me knight: Samingo.
Is’t not so?
FALSTAFF

‘Tis so.
SILENCE

Is’t so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.
Re-enter DAVY
DAVY

An’t please your worship, there’s one Pistol come
from the court with news.
FALSTAFF

From the court! let him come in.
Enter PISTOL
How now, Pistol!
PISTOL

Sir John, God save you!
FALSTAFF

What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
PISTOL

Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet
knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.
SILENCE

By’r lady, I think a’ be, but goodman Puff of Barson.
PISTOL

Puff!
Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
And tidings do I bring and lucky joys
And golden times and happy news of price.
FALSTAFF

I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.
PISTOL

A foutre for the world and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa and golden joys.
FALSTAFF

O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
SILENCE

And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
Singing
PISTOL

Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
And shall good news be baffled?
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap.
SILENCE

Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.
PISTOL

Why then, lament therefore.
SHALLOW

Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, you come with news
from the court, I take it there’s but two ways,
either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am,
sir, under the king, in some authority.
PISTOL

Under which king, Besonian? speak, or die.
SHALLOW

Under King Harry.
PISTOL

Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?
SHALLOW

Harry the Fourth.
PISTOL

A foutre for thine office!
Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king;
Harry the Fifth’s the man. I speak the truth:
When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard.
FALSTAFF

What, is the old king dead?
PISTOL

As nail in door: the things I speak are just.
FALSTAFF

Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert
Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land,
’tis thine. Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.
BARDOLPH

O joyful day!
I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.
PISTOL

What! I do bring good news.
FALSTAFF

Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my
Lord Shallow,–be what thou wilt; I am fortune’s
steward–get on thy boots: we’ll ride all night.
O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!
Exit BARDOLPH
Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal devise
something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master
Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let
us take any man’s horses; the laws of England are at
my commandment. Blessed are they that have been my
friends; and woe to my lord chief-justice!
PISTOL

Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
‘Where is the life that late I led?’ say they:
Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!
Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. A street.

Enter Beadles, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET
MISTRESS QUICKLY

No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might
die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast
drawn my shoulder out of joint.
First Beadle

The constables have delivered her over to me; and
she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant
her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I ‘ll tell
thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal, an
the child I now go with do miscarry, thou wert
better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou
paper-faced villain.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make
this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the
fruit of her womb miscarry!
First Beadle

If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;
you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go
with me; for the man is dead that you and Pistol
beat amongst you.
DOLL TEARSHEET

I’ll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I
will have you as soundly swinged for this,–you
blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner,
if you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half-kirtles.
First Beadle

Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

O God, that right should thus overcome might!
Well, of sufferance comes ease.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Ay, come, you starved blood-hound.
DOLL TEARSHEET

Goodman death, goodman bones!
MISTRESS QUICKLY

Thou atomy, thou!
DOLL TEARSHEET

Come, you thin thing; come you rascal.
First Beadle

Very well.
Exeunt

SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey.

Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes
First Groom

More rushes, more rushes.
Second Groom

The trumpets have sounded twice.
First Groom

‘Twill be two o’clock ere they come from the
coronation: dispatch, dispatch.
Exeunt
Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page
FALSTAFF

Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will
make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as
a’ comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he
will give me.
PISTOL

God bless thy lungs, good knight.
FALSTAFF

Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had
time to have made new liveries, I would have
bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But
’tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this
doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
SHALLOW

It doth so.
FALSTAFF

It shows my earnestness of affection,–
SHALLOW

It doth so.
FALSTAFF

My devotion,–
SHALLOW

It doth, it doth, it doth.
FALSTAFF

As it were, to ride day and night; and not to
deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience
to shift me,–
SHALLOW

It is best, certain.
FALSTAFF

But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with
desire to see him; thinking of nothing else,
putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there
were nothing else to be done but to see him.
PISTOL

‘Tis ‘semper idem,’ for ‘obsque hoc nihil est:’
’tis all in every part.
SHALLOW

‘Tis so, indeed.
PISTOL

My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.
Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance and contagious prison;
Haled thither
By most mechanical and dirty hand:
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell
Alecto’s snake,
For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
FALSTAFF

I will deliver her.
Shouts within, and the trumpets sound
PISTOL

There roar’d the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
Enter KING HENRY V and his train, the Lord Chief- Justice among them
FALSTAFF

God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!
PISTOL

The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
FALSTAFF

God save thee, my sweet boy!
KING HENRY IV

My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.
Lord Chief-Justice Have you your wits? know you what ’tis to speak?
FALSTAFF

My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
KING HENRY IV

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream’d of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell’d, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform’d the tenor of our word. Set on.
Exeunt KING HENRY V, & c
FALSTAFF

Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
SHALLOW

Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me
have home with me.
FALSTAFF

That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you
grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to
him: look you, he must seem thus to the world:
fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet
that shall make you great.
SHALLOW

I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give
me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I
beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred
of my thousand.
FALSTAFF

Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you
heard was but a colour.
SHALLOW

A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.
FALSTAFF

Fear no colours: go with me to dinner: come,
Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent
for soon at night.
Re-enter Prince John of LANCASTER, the Lord Chief-Justice; Officers with them
Lord Chief-Justice Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:
Take all his company along with him.
FALSTAFF

My lord, my lord,–
Lord Chief-Justice I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon.
Take them away.
PISTOL

Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta.
Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the Lord Chief-Justice
LANCASTER

I like this fair proceeding of the king’s:
He hath intent his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for;
But all are banish’d till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Lord Chief-Justice And so they are.
LANCASTER

The king hath call’d his parliament, my lord.
Lord Chief-Justice He hath.
LANCASTER

I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
We bear our civil swords and native fire
As far as France: I beard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Come, will you hence?
Exeunt
EPILOGUE
Spoken by a Dancer
First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech.
My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty;
and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look
for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have
to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I
should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.
But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it
known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here
in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your
patience for it and to promise you a better. I
meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an
ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and
you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you
I would be and here I commit my body to your
mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and,
as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.
If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will
you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but
light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a
good conscience will make any possible satisfaction,
and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the
gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which
was never seen before in such an assembly.
One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too
much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make
you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for
any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,
unless already a’ be killed with your hard
opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is
not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are
too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down
before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.