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As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear\nIs almost choked by unresisted lust.\nAway he steals with open listening ear,\nFull of foul hope and full of fond mistrust;\nBoth which, as servitors to the unjust,\nSo cross him with their opposite persuasion,\nThat now he vows a league, and now invasion.


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Within his thought her heavenly image sits,\nAnd in the self-same seat sits Collatine:\nThat eye which looks on her confounds his wits;\nThat eye which him beholds, as more divine,\nUnto a view so false will not incline;\nBut with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,\nWhich once corrupted takes the worser part;


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And therein heartens up his servile powers,\nWho, flatter'd by their leader's jocund show,\nStuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;\nAnd as their captain, so their pride doth grow,\nPaying more slavish tribute than they owe.\nBy reprobate desire thus madly led,\nThe Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.


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The locks between her chamber and his will,\nEach one by him enforced, retires his ward;\nBut, as they open, they all rate his ill,\nWhich drives the creeping thief to some regard:\nThe threshold grates the door to have him heard;\nNight-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;\nThey fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.


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As each unwilling portal yields him way,\nThrough little vents and crannies of the place\nThe wind wars with his torch to make him stay,\nAnd blows the smoke of it into his face,\nExtinguishing his conduct in this case;\nBut his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,\nPuffs forth another wind that fires the torch:


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And being lighted, by the light he spies\nLucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks:\nHe takes it from the rushes where it lies,\nAnd griping it, the needle his finger pricks;\nAs who should say 'This glove to wanton tricks\nIs not inured; return again in haste;\nThou see'st our mistress' ornaments are chaste.'


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But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;\nHe in the worst sense construes their denial:\nThe doors, the wind, the glove, that did delay him,\nHe takes for accidental things of trial;\nOr as those bars which stop the hourly dial,\nWho with a lingering slay his course doth let,\nTill every minute pays the hour his debt.


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'So, so,' quoth he, 'these lets attend the time,\nLike little frosts that sometime threat the spring,\nTo add a more rejoicing to the prime,\nAnd give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.\nPain pays the income of each precious thing;\nHuge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands,\nThe merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.'


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Now is he come unto the chamber-door,\nThat shuts him from the heaven of his thought,\nWhich with a yielding latch, and with no more,\nHath barr'd him from the blessed thing be sought.\nSo from himself impiety hath wrought,\nThat for his prey to pray he doth begin,\nAs if the heavens should countenance his sin.


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But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,\nHaving solicited th' eternal power\nThat his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,\nAnd they would stand auspicious to the hour,\nEven there he starts: quoth he, 'I must deflower:\nThe powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,\nHow can they then assist me in the act?


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'Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!\nMy will is back'd with resolution:\nThoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried;\nThe blackest sin is clear'd with absolution;\nAgainst love's fire fear's frost hath dissolution.\nThe eye of heaven is out, and misty night\nCovers the shame that follows sweet delight.'


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This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch,\nAnd with his knee the door he opens wide.\nThe dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch:\nThus treason works ere traitors be espied.\nWho sees the lurking serpent steps aside;\nBut she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,\nLies at the mercy of his mortal sting.


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Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,\nAnd gazeth on her yet unstained bed.\nThe curtains being close, about he walks,\nRolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:\nBy their high treason is his heart misled;\nWhich gives the watch-word to his hand full soon\nTo draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.


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Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,\nRushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;\nEven so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun\nTo wink, being blinded with a greater light:\nWhether it is that she reflects so bright,\nThat dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;\nBut blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.


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O, had they in that darksome prison died!\nThen had they seen the period of their ill;\nThen Collatine again, by Lucrece' side,\nIn his clear bed might have reposed still:\nBut they must ope, this blessed league to kill;\nAnd holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight\nMust sell her joy, her life, her world's delight.


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Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,\nCozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;\nWho, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,\nSwelling on either side to want his bliss;\nBetween whose hills her head entombed is:\nWhere, like a virtuous monument, she lies,\nTo be admired of lewd unhallow'd eyes.


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Without the bed her other fair hand was,\nOn the green coverlet; whose perfect white\nShow'd like an April daisy on the grass,\nWith pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.\nHer eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light,\nAnd canopied in darkness sweetly lay,\nTill they might open to adorn the day.


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Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath;\nO modest wantons! wanton modesty!\nShowing life's triumph in the map of death,\nAnd death's dim look in life's mortality:\nEach in her sleep themselves so beautify,\nAs if between them twain there were no strife,\nBut that life lived in death, and death in life.


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Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,\nA pair of maiden worlds unconquered,\nSave of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,\nAnd him by oath they truly honoured.\nThese worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred;\nWho, like a foul ursurper, went about\nFrom this fair throne to heave the owner out.


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What could he see but mightily he noted?\nWhat did he note but strongly he desired?\nWhat he beheld, on that he firmly doted,\nAnd in his will his wilful eye he tired.\nWith more than admiration he admired\nHer azure veins, her alabaster skin,\nHer coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.


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As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,\nSharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,\nSo o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,\nHis rage of lust by gazing qualified;\nSlack'd, not suppress'd; for standing by her side,\nHis eye, which late this mutiny restrains,\nUnto a greater uproar tempts his veins:


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And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,\nObdurate vassals fell exploits effecting,\nIn bloody death and ravishment delighting,\nNor children's tears nor mothers' groans respecting,\nSwell in their pride, the onset still expecting:\nAnon his beating heart, alarum striking,\nGives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.


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His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,\nHis eye commends the leading to his hand;\nHis hand, as proud of such a dignity,\nSmoking with pride, march'd on to make his stand\nOn her bare breast, the heart of all her land;\nWhose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,\nLeft there round turrets destitute and pale.


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They, mustering to the quiet cabinet\nWhere their dear governess and lady lies,\nDo tell her she is dreadfully beset,\nAnd fright her with confusion of their cries:\nShe, much amazed, breaks ope her lock'd-up eyes,\nWho, peeping forth this tumult to behold,\nAre by his flaming torch dimm'd and controll'd.


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Imagine her as one in dead of night\nFrom forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,\nThat thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,\nWhose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking;\nWhat terror or 'tis! but she, in worser taking,\nFrom sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view\nThe sight which makes supposed terror true.


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Wrapp'd and confounded in a thousand fears,\nLike to a new-kill'd bird she trembling lies;\nShe dares not look; yet, winking, there appears\nQuick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:\nSuch shadows are the weak brain's forgeries;\nWho, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,\nIn darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.


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His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,--\nRude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!--\nMay feel her heart-poor citizen!--distress'd,\nWounding itself to death, rise up and fall,\nBeating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.\nThis moves in him more rage and lesser pity,\nTo make the breach and enter this sweet city.


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First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin\nTo sound a parley to his heartless foe;\nWho o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,\nThe reason of this rash alarm to know,\nWhich he by dumb demeanor seeks to show;\nBut she with vehement prayers urgeth still\nUnder what colour he commits this ill.


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Thus he replies: 'The colour in thy face,\nThat even for anger makes the lily pale,\nAnd the red rose blush at her own disgrace,\nShall plead for me and tell my loving tale:\nUnder that colour am I come to scale\nThy never-conquer'd fort: the fault is thine,\nFor those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.


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'Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:\nThy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,\nWhere thou with patience must my will abide;\nMy will that marks thee for my earth's delight,\nWhich I to conquer sought with all my might;\nBut as reproof and reason beat it dead,\nBy thy bright beauty was it newly bred.


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'I see what crosses my attempt will bring;\nI know what thorns the growing rose defends;\nI think the honey guarded with a sting;\nAll this beforehand counsel comprehends:\nBut will is deaf and hears no heedful friends;\nOnly he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,\nAnd dotes on what he looks, 'gainst law or duty.


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'I have debated, even in my soul,\nWhat wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;\nBut nothing can affection's course control,\nOr stop the headlong fury of his speed.\nI know repentant tears ensue the deed,\nReproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;\nYet strive I to embrace mine infamy.'


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This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,\nWhich, like a falcon towering in the skies,\nCoucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,\nWhose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:\nSo under his insulting falchion lies\nHarmless Lucretia, marking what he tells\nWith trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.


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'Lucrece,' quoth he,'this night I must enjoy thee:\nIf thou deny, then force must work my way,\nFor in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee:\nThat done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay,\nTo kill thine honour with thy life's decay;\nAnd in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,\nSwearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.


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'So thy surviving husband shall remain\nThe scornful mark of every open eye;\nThy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,\nThy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:\nAnd thou, the author of their obloquy,\nShalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,\nAnd sung by children in succeeding times.


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'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:\nThe fault unknown is as a thought unacted;\nA little harm done to a great good end\nFor lawful policy remains enacted.\nThe poisonous simple sometimes is compacted\nIn a pure compound; being so applied,\nHis venom in effect is purified.


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'Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,\nTender my suit: bequeath not to their lot\nThe shame that from them no device can take,\nThe blemish that will never be forgot;\nWorse than a slavish wipe or birth-hour's blot:\nFor marks descried in men's nativity\nAre nature's faults, not their own infamy.'


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Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye\nHe rouseth up himself and makes a pause;\nWhile she, the picture of pure piety,\nLike a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws,\nPleads, in a wilderness where are no laws,\nTo the rough beast that knows no gentle right,\nNor aught obeys but his foul appetite.


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But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,\nIn his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,\nFrom earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,\nWhich blows these pitchy vapours from their bidding,\nHindering their present fall by this dividing;\nSo his unhallow'd haste her words delays,\nAnd moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.


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Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,\nWhile in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth:\nHer sad behavior feeds his vulture folly,\nA swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:\nHis ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth\nNo penetrable entrance to her plaining:\nTears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.


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Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd\nIn the remorseless wrinkles of his face;\nHer modest eloquence with sighs is mix'd,\nWhich to her oratory adds more grace.\nShe puts the period often from his place;\nAnd midst the sentence so her accent breaks,\nThat twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.


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She conjures him by high almighty Jove,\nBy knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath,\nBy her untimely tears, her husband's love,\nBy holy human law, and common troth,\nBy heaven and earth, and all the power of both,\nThat to his borrow'd bed he make retire,\nAnd stoop to honour, not to foul desire.


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Quoth she, 'Reward not hospitality\nWith such black payment as thou hast pretended;\nMud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;\nMar not the thing that cannot be amended;\nEnd thy ill aim before thy shoot be ended;\nHe is no woodman that doth bend his bow\nTo strike a poor unseasonable doe.


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'My husband is thy friend; for his sake spare me:\nThyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me:\nMyself a weakling; do not then ensnare me:\nThou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me.\nMy sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee:\nIf ever man were moved with woman moans,\nBe moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans:


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'All which together, like a troubled ocean,\nBeat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart,\nTo soften it with their continual motion;\nFor stones dissolved to water do convert.\nO, if no harder than a stone thou art,\nMelt at my tears, and be compassionate!\nSoft pity enters at an iron gate.


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'In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee:\nHast thou put on his shape to do him shame?\nTo all the host of heaven I complain me,\nThou wrong'st his honour, wound'st his princely name.\nThou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same,\nThou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king;\nFor kings like gods should govern everything.


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'How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,\nWhen thus thy vices bud before thy spring!\nIf in thy hope thou darest do such outrage,\nWhat darest thou not when once thou art a king?\nO, be remember'd, no outrageous thing\nFrom vassal actors can be wiped away;\nThen kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.


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'This deed will make thee only loved for fear;\nBut happy monarchs still are fear'd for love:\nWith foul offenders thou perforce must bear,\nWhen they in thee the like offences prove:\nIf but for fear of this, thy will remove;\nFor princes are the glass, the school, the book,\nWhere subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.


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'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?\nMust he in thee read lectures of such shame?\nWilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern\nAuthority for sin, warrant for blame,\nTo privilege dishonour in thy name?\nThou black'st reproach against long-living laud,\nAnd makest fair reputation but a bawd.


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'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,\nFrom a pure heart command thy rebel will:\nDraw not thy sword to guard iniquity,\nFor it was lent thee all that brood to kill.\nThy princely office how canst thou fulfil,\nWhen, pattern'd by thy fault, foul sin may say,\nHe learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?


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'Think but how vile a spectacle it were,\nTo view thy present trespass in another.\nMen's faults do seldom to themselves appear;\nTheir own transgressions partially they smother:\nThis guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.\nO, how are they wrapp'd in with infamies\nThat from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!


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'To thee, to thee, my heaved-up hands appeal,\nNot to seducing lust, thy rash relier:\nI sue for exiled majesty's repeal;\nLet him return, and flattering thoughts retire:\nHis true respect will prison false desire,\nAnd wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,\nThat thou shalt see thy state and pity mine.'


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'Have done,' quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide\nTurns not, but swells the higher by this let.\nSmall lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,\nAnd with the wind in greater fury fret:\nThe petty streams that pay a daily debt\nTo their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste\nAdd to his flow, but alter not his taste.'


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'Thou art,' quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;\nAnd, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood\nBlack lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,\nWho seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.\nIf all these pretty ills shall change thy good,\nThy sea within a puddle's womb is hearsed,\nAnd not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.


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'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;\nThou nobly base, they basely dignified;\nThou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave:\nThou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:\nThe lesser thing should not the greater hide;\nThe cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,\nBut low shrubs wither at the cedar's root.


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'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'--\nNo more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee:\nYield to my love; if not, enforced hate,\nInstead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;\nThat done, despitefully I mean to bear thee\nUnto the base bed of some rascal groom,\nTo be thy partner in this shameful doom.'


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This said, he sets his foot upon the light,\nFor light and lust are deadly enemies:\nShame folded up in blind concealing night,\nWhen most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.\nThe wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries;\nTill with her own white fleece her voice controll'd\nEntombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:


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For with the nightly linen that she wears\nHe pens her piteous clamours in her head;\nCooling his hot face in the chastest tears\nThat ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.\nO, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!\nThe spots whereof could weeping purify,\nHer tears should drop on them perpetually.


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But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,\nAnd he hath won what he would lose again:\nThis forced league doth force a further strife;\nThis momentary joy breeds months of pain;\nThis hot desire converts to cold disdain:\nPure Chastity is rifled of her store,\nAnd Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.


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Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,\nUnapt for tender smell or speedy flight,\nMake slow pursuit, or altogether balk\nThe prey wherein by nature they delight;\nSo surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:\nHis taste delicious, in digestion souring,\nDevours his will, that lived by foul devouring.


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O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit\nCan comprehend in still imagination!\nDrunken Desire must vomit his receipt,\nEre he can see his own abomination.\nWhile Lust is in his pride, no exclamation\nCan curb his heat or rein his rash desire,\nTill like a jade Self-will himself doth tire.


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And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,\nWith heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,\nFeeble Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,\nLike to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:\nThe flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace,\nFor there it revels; and when that decays,\nThe guilty rebel for remission prays.


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So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,\nWho this accomplishment so hotly chased;\nFor now against himself he sounds this doom,\nThat through the length of times he stands disgraced:\nBesides, his soul's fair temple is defaced;\nTo whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,\nTo ask the spotted princess how she fares.


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She says, her subjects with foul insurrection\nHave batter'd down her consecrated wall,\nAnd by their mortal fault brought in subjection\nHer immortality, and made her thrall\nTo living death and pain perpetual:\nWhich in her prescience she controlled still,\nBut her foresight could not forestall their will.


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Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,\nA captive victor that hath lost in gain;\nBearing away the wound that nothing healeth,\nThe scar that will, despite of cure, remain;\nLeaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.\nShe bears the load of lust he left behind,\nAnd he the burden of a guilty mind.


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He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;\nShe like a wearied lamb lies panting there;\nHe scowls and hates himself for his offence;\nShe, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;\nHe faintly flies, sneaking with guilty fear;\nShe stays, exclaiming on the direful night;\nHe runs, and chides his vanish'd, loathed delight.


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He thence departs a heavy convertite;\nShe there remains a hopeless castaway;\nHe in his speed looks for the morning light;\nShe prays she never may behold the day,\n'For day,' quoth she, 'nights scapes doth open lay,\nAnd my true eyes have never practised how\nTo cloak offences with a cunning brow.


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'They think not but that every eye can see\nThe same disgrace which they themselves behold;\nAnd therefore would they still in darkness be,\nTo have their unseen sin remain untold;\nFor they their guilt with weeping will unfold,\nAnd grave, like water that doth eat in steel,\nUpon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'


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Here she exclaims against repose and rest,\nAnd bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.\nShe wakes her heart by beating on her breast,\nAnd bids it leap from thence, where it may find\nSome purer chest to close so pure a mind.\nFrantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite\nAgainst the unseen secrecy of night:


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'O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!\nDim register and notary of shame!\nBlack stage for tragedies and murders fell!\nVast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!\nBlind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!\nGrim cave of death! whispering conspirator\nWith close-tongued treason and the ravisher!


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'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night!\nSince thou art guilty of my cureless crime,\nMuster thy mists to meet the eastern light,\nMake war against proportion'd course of time;\nOr if thou wilt permit the sun to climb\nHis wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,\nKnit poisonous clouds about his golden head.


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'With rotten damps ravish the morning air;\nLet their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick\nThe life of purity, the supreme fair,\nEre he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;\nAnd let thy misty vapours march so thick,\nThat in their smoky ranks his smother'd light\nMay set at noon and make perpetual night.


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'Were Tarquin Night, as he is but Night's child,\nThe silver-shining queen he would distain;\nHer twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled,\nThrough Night's black bosom should not peep again:\nSo should I have co-partners in my pain;\nAnd fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,\nAs palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.


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'Where now I have no one to blush with me,\nTo cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,\nTo mask their brows and hide their infamy;\nBut I alone alone must sit and pine,\nSeasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,\nMingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,\nPoor wasting monuments of lasting moans.


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'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,\nLet not the jealous Day behold that face\nWhich underneath thy black all-hiding cloak\nImmodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace!\nKeep still possession of thy gloomy place,\nThat all the faults which in thy reign are made\nMay likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!


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'Make me not object to the tell-tale Day!\nThe light will show, character'd in my brow,\nThe story of sweet chastity's decay,\nThe impious breach of holy wedlock vow:\nYea the illiterate, that know not how\nTo cipher what is writ in learned books,\nWill quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.


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'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,\nAnd fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;\nThe orator, to deck his oratory,\nWill couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame;\nFeast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,\nWill tie the hearers to attend each line,\nHow Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.


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'Let my good name, that senseless reputation,\nFor Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:\nIf that be made a theme for disputation,\nThe branches of another root are rotted,\nAnd undeserved reproach to him allotted\nThat is as clear from this attaint of mine\nAs I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.


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'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!\nO unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!\nReproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,\nAnd Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,\nHow he in peace is wounded, not in war.\nAlas, how many bear such shameful blows,\nWhich not themselves, but he that gives them knows!


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'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,\nFrom me by strong assault it is bereft.\nMy honour lost, and I, a drone-like bee,\nHave no perfection of my summer left,\nBut robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:\nIn thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,\nAnd suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.


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'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack;\nYet for thy honour did I entertain him;\nComing from thee, I could not put him back,\nFor it had been dishonour to disdain him:\nBesides, of weariness he did complain him,\nAnd talk'd of virtue: O unlook'd-for evil,\nWhen virtue is profaned in such a devil!


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'Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?\nOr hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?\nOr toads infect fair founts with venom mud?\nOr tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?\nOr kings be breakers of their own behests?\nBut no perfection is so absolute,\nThat some impurity doth not pollute.


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'The aged man that coffers-up his gold\nIs plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits;\nAnd scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,\nBut like still-pining Tantalus he sits,\nAnd useless barns the harvest of his wits;\nHaving no other pleasure of his gain\nBut torment that it cannot cure his pain.


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'So then he hath it when he cannot use it,\nAnd leaves it to be master'd by his young;\nWho in their pride do presently abuse it:\nTheir father was too weak, and they too strong,\nTo hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.\nThe sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours\nEven in the moment that we call them ours.


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'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;\nUnwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;\nThe adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;\nWhat virtue breeds iniquity devours:\nWe have no good that we can say is ours,\nBut ill-annexed Opportunity\nOr kills his life or else his quality.


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'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!\n'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason:\nThou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;\nWhoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;\n'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;\nAnd in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,\nSits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.


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'Thou makest the vestal violate her oath;\nThou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;\nThou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;\nThou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!\nThou plantest scandal and displacest laud:\nThou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,\nThy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!


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'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,\nThy private feasting to a public fast,\nThy smoothing titles to a ragged name,\nThy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:\nThy violent vanities can never last.\nHow comes it then, vile Opportunity,\nBeing so bad, such numbers seek for thee?


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'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,\nAnd bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?\nWhen wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?\nOr free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?\nGive physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?\nThe poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;\nBut they ne'er meet with Opportunity.


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'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;\nThe orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;\nJustice is feasting while the widow weeps;\nAdvice is sporting while infection breeds:\nThou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:\nWrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,\nThy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.


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'When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,\nA thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:\nThey buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,\nHe gratis comes; and thou art well appaid\nAs well to hear as grant what he hath said.\nMy Collatine would else have come to me\nWhen Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.


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Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,\nGuilty of perjury and subornation,\nGuilty of treason, forgery, and shift,\nGuilty of incest, that abomination;\nAn accessary by thine inclination\nTo all sins past, and all that are to come,\nFrom the creation to the general doom.


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'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly Night,\nSwift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,\nEater of youth, false slave to false delight,\nBase watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;\nThou nursest all and murder'st all that are:\nO, hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!\nBe guilty of my death, since of my crime.


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'Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,\nBetray'd the hours thou gavest me to repose,\nCancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me\nTo endless date of never-ending woes?\nTime's office is to fine the hate of foes;\nTo eat up errors by opinion bred,\nNot spend the dowry of a lawful bed.


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'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,\nTo unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,\nTo stamp the seal of time in aged things,\nTo wake the morn and sentinel the night,\nTo wrong the wronger till he render right,\nTo ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,\nAnd smear with dust their glittering golden towers;


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'To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,\nTo feed oblivion with decay of things,\nTo blot old books and alter their contents,\nTo pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,\nTo dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs,\nTo spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,\nAnd turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;


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'To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,\nTo make the child a man, the man a child,\nTo slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,\nTo tame the unicorn and lion wild,\nTo mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,\nTo cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,\nAnd waste huge stones with little water drops.


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'Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,\nUnless thou couldst return to make amends?\nOne poor retiring minute in an age\nWould purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,\nLending him wit that to bad debtors lends:\nO, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,\nI could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack!


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'Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,\nWith some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:\nDevise extremes beyond extremity,\nTo make him curse this cursed crimeful night:\nLet ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright;\nAnd the dire thought of his committed evil\nShape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.


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'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,\nAfflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;\nLet there bechance him pitiful mischances,\nTo make him moan; but pity not his moans:\nStone him with harden'd hearts harder than stones;\nAnd let mild women to him lose their mildness,\nWilder to him than tigers in their wildness.


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'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,\nLet him have time against himself to rave,\nLet him have time of Time's help to despair,\nLet him have time to live a loathed slave,\nLet him have time a beggar's orts to crave,\nAnd time to see one that by alms doth live\nDisdain to him disdained scraps to give.


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'Let him have time to see his friends his foes,\nAnd merry fools to mock at him resort;\nLet him have time to mark how slow time goes\nIn time of sorrow, and how swift and short\nHis time of folly and his time of sport;\nAnd ever let his unrecalling crime\nHave time to wail th' abusing of his time.


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'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,\nTeach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!\nAt his own shadow let the thief run mad,\nHimself himself seek every hour to kill!\nSuch wretched hands such wretched blood should spill;\nFor who so base would such an office have\nAs slanderous death's-man to so base a slave?


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'The baser is he, coming from a king,\nTo shame his hope with deeds degenerate:\nThe mightier man, the mightier is the thing\nThat makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;\nFor greatest scandal waits on greatest state.\nThe moon being clouded presently is miss'd,\nBut little stars may hide them when they list.


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'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,\nAnd unperceived fly with the filth away;\nBut if the like the snow-white swan desire,\nThe stain upon his silver down will stay.\nPoor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day:\nGnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,\nBut eagles gazed upon with every eye.


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'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!\nUnprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!\nBusy yourselves in skill-contending schools;\nDebate where leisure serves with dull debaters;\nTo trembling clients be you mediators:\nFor me, I force not argument a straw,\nSince that my case is past the help of law.


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'In vain I rail at Opportunity,\nAt Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful Night;\nIn vain I cavil with mine infamy,\nIn vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite:\nThis helpless smoke of words doth me no right.\nThe remedy indeed to do me good\nIs to let forth my foul-defiled blood.


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'Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree?\nHonour thyself to rid me of this shame:\nFor if I die, my honour lives in thee;\nBut if I live, thou livest in my defame:\nSince thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,\nAnd wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe,\nKill both thyself and her for yielding so.'


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This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,\nTo find some desperate instrument of death:\nBut this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth\nTo make more vent for passage of her breath;\nWhich, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth\nAs smoke from AEtna, that in air consumes,\nOr that which from discharged cannon fumes.


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'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain\nSome happy mean to end a hapless life.\nI fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,\nYet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:\nBut when I fear'd I was a loyal wife:\nSo am I now: O no, that cannot be;\nOf that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.


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'O, that is gone for which I sought to live,\nAnd therefore now I need not fear to die.\nTo clear this spot by death, at least I give\nA badge of fame to slander's livery;\nA dying life to living infamy:\nPoor helpless help, the treasure stol'n away,\nTo burn the guiltless casket where it lay!


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'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know\nThe stained taste of violated troth;\nI will not wrong thy true affection so,\nTo flatter thee with an infringed oath;\nThis bastard graff shall never come to growth:\nHe shall not boast who did thy stock pollute\nThat thou art doting father of his fruit.


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'Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,\nNor laugh with his companions at thy state:\nBut thou shalt know thy interest was not bought\nBasely with gold, but stol'n from forth thy gate.\nFor me, I am the mistress of my fate,\nAnd with my trespass never will dispense,\nTill life to death acquit my forced offence.


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'I will not poison thee with my attaint,\nNor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;\nMy sable ground of sin I will not paint,\nTo hide the truth of this false night's abuses:\nMy tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,\nAs from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,\nShall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'


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By this, lamenting Philomel had ended\nThe well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow,\nAnd solemn night with slow sad gait descended\nTo ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow\nLends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:\nBut cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,\nAnd therefore still in night would cloister'd be.


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Revealing day through every cranny spies,\nAnd seems to point her out where she sits weeping;\nTo whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,\nWhy pry'st thou through my window? leave thy peeping:\nMock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:\nBrand not my forehead with thy piercing light,\nFor day hath nought to do what's done by night.'


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Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:\nTrue grief is fond and testy as a child,\nWho wayward once, his mood with nought agrees:\nOld woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;\nContinuance tames the one; the other wild,\nLike an unpractised swimmer plunging still,\nWith too much labour drowns for want of skill.


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So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,\nHolds disputation with each thing she views,\nAnd to herself all sorrow doth compare;\nNo object but her passion's strength renews;\nAnd as one shifts, another straight ensues:\nSometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;\nSometime 'tis mad and too much talk affords.


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The little birds that tune their morning's joy\nMake her moans mad with their sweet melody:\nFor mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;\nSad souls are slain in merry company;\nGrief best is pleased with grief's society:\nTrue sorrow then is feelingly sufficed\nWhen with like semblance it is sympathized.


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'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;\nHe ten times pines that pines beholding food;\nTo see the salve doth make the wound ache more;\nGreat grief grieves most at that would do it good;\nDeep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,\nWho being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;\nGrief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.


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'You mocking-birds,' quoth she, 'your tunes entomb\nWithin your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,\nAnd in my hearing be you mute and dumb:\nMy restless discord loves no stops nor rests;\nA woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:\nRelish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;\nDistress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.


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'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,\nMake thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:\nAs the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,\nSo I at each sad strain will strain a tear,\nAnd with deep groans the diapason bear;\nFor burden-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,\nWhile thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.


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'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,\nTo keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,\nTo imitate thee well, against my heart\nWill fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye;\nWho, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.\nThese means, as frets upon an instrument,\nShall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.


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'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,\nAs shaming any eye should thee behold,\nSome dark deep desert, seated from the way,\nThat knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,\nWill we find out; and there we will unfold\nTo creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:\nSince men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'


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As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,\nWildly determining which way to fly,\nOr one encompass'd with a winding maze,\nThat cannot tread the way out readily;\nSo with herself is she in mutiny,\nTo live or die which of the twain were better,\nWhen life is shamed, and death reproach's debtor.


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'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack, what were it,\nBut with my body my poor soul's pollution?\nThey that lose half with greater patience bear it\nThan they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion.\nThat mother tries a merciless conclusion\nWho, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,\nWill slay the other and be nurse to none.


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'My body or my soul, which was the dearer,\nWhen the one pure, the other made divine?\nWhose love of either to myself was nearer,\nWhen both were kept for heaven and Collatine?\nAy me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,\nHis leaves will wither and his sap decay;\nSo must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.


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'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,\nHer mansion batter'd by the enemy;\nHer sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,\nGrossly engirt with daring infamy:\nThen let it not be call'd impiety,\nIf in this blemish'd fort I make some hole\nThrough which I may convey this troubled soul.


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'Yet die I will not till my Collatine\nHave heard the cause of my untimely death;\nThat he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,\nRevenge on him that made me stop my breath.\nMy stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,\nWhich by him tainted shall for him be spent,\nAnd as his due writ in my testament.


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'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife\nThat wounds my body so dishonoured.\n'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;\nThe one will live, the other being dead:\nSo of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;\nFor in my death I murder shameful scorn:\nMy shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.


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'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,\nWhat legacy shall I bequeath to thee?\nMy resolution, love, shall be thy boast,\nBy whose example thou revenged mayest be.\nHow Tarquin must be used, read it in me:\nMyself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,\nAnd for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so.


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'This brief abridgement of my will I make:\nMy soul and body to the skies and ground;\nMy resolution, husband, do thou take;\nMine honour be the knife's that makes my wound;\nMy shame be his that did my fame confound;\nAnd all my fame that lives disbursed be\nTo those that live, and think no shame of me.


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'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;\nHow was I overseen that thou shalt see it!\nMy blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;\nMy life's foul deed, my life's fair end shall free it.\nFaint not, faint heart, but stoutly say 'So be it:'\nYield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee:\nThou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.'


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This Plot of death when sadly she had laid,\nAnd wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,\nWith untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,\nWhose swift obedience to her mistress hies;\nFor fleet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies.\nPoor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so\nAs winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.


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Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,\nWith soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,\nAnd sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,\nFor why her face wore sorrow's livery;\nBut durst not ask of her audaciously\nWhy her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,\nNor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.


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But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,\nEach flower moisten'd like a melting eye;\nEven so the maid with swelling drops gan wet\nHer circled eyne, enforced by sympathy\nOf those fair suns set in her mistress' sky,\nWho in a salt-waved ocean quench their light,\nWhich makes the maid weep like the dewy night.


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A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,\nLike ivory conduits coral cisterns filling:\nOne justly weeps; the other takes in hand\nNo cause, but company, of her drops spilling:\nTheir gentle sex to weep are often willing;\nGrieving themselves to guess at others' smarts,\nAnd then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.


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For men have marble, women waxen, minds,\nAnd therefore are they form'd as marble will;\nThe weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds\nIs form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:\nThen call them not the authors of their ill,\nNo more than wax shall be accounted evil\nWherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.


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Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,\nLays open all the little worms that creep;\nIn men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain\nCave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:\nThrough crystal walls each little mote will peep:\nThough men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,\nPoor women's faces are their own fault's books.


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No man inveigh against the wither'd flower,\nBut chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd:\nNot that devour'd, but that which doth devour,\nIs worthy blame. O, let it not be hild\nPoor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd\nWith men's abuses: those proud lords, to blame,\nMake weak-made women tenants to their shame.


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The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,\nAssail'd by night with circumstances strong\nOf present death, and shame that might ensue\nBy that her death, to do her husband wrong:\nSuch danger to resistance did belong,\nThat dying fear through all her body spread;\nAnd who cannot abuse a body dead?


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By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak\nTo the poor counterfeit of her complaining:\n'My girl,' quoth she, 'on what occasion break\nThose tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are\nraining?\nIf thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,\nKnow, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:\nIf tears could help, mine own would do me good.


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'But tell me, girl, when went'--and there she stay'd\nTill after a deep groan--'Tarquin from hence?'\n'Madam, ere I was up,' replied the maid,\n'The more to blame my sluggard negligence:\nYet with the fault I thus far can dispense;\nMyself was stirring ere the break of day,\nAnd, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.


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'But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,\nShe would request to know your heaviness.'\n'O, peace!' quoth Lucrece: 'if it should be told,\nThe repetition cannot make it less;\nFor more it is than I can well express:\nAnd that deep torture may be call'd a hell\nWhen more is felt than one hath power to tell.


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'Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen:\nYet save that labour, for I have them here.\nWhat should I say? One of my husband's men\nBid thou be ready, by and by, to bear\nA letter to my lord, my love, my dear;\nBid him with speed prepare to carry it;\nThe cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.'


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Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,\nFirst hovering o'er the paper with her quill:\nConceit and grief an eager combat fight;\nWhat wit sets down is blotted straight with will;\nThis is too curious-good, this blunt and ill:\nMuch like a press of people at a door,\nThrong her inventions, which shall go before.


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At last she thus begins: 'Thou worthy lord\nOf that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,\nHealth to thy person! next vouchsafe t' afford--\nIf ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see--\nSome present speed to come and visit me.\nSo, I commend me from our house in grief:\nMy woes are tedious, though my words are brief.'


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Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,\nHer certain sorrow writ uncertainly.\nBy this short schedule Collatine may know\nHer grief, but not her grief's true quality:\nShe dares not thereof make discovery,\nLest he should hold it her own gross abuse,\nEre she with blood had stain'd her stain'd excuse.


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Besides, the life and feeling of her passion\nShe hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her:\nWhen sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion\nOf her disgrace, the better so to clear her\nFrom that suspicion which the world might bear her.\nTo shun this blot, she would not blot the letter\nWith words, till action might become them better.


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To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;\nFor then eye interprets to the ear\nThe heavy motion that it doth behold,\nWhen every part a part of woe doth bear.\n'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:\nDeep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,\nAnd sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.


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Her letter now is seal'd, and on it writ\n'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste.'\nThe post attends, and she delivers it,\nCharging the sour-faced groom to hie as fast\nAs lagging fowls before the northern blast:\nSpeed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:\nExtremity still urgeth such extremes.


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The homely villain court'sies to her low;\nAnd, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye\nReceives the scroll without or yea or no,\nAnd forth with bashful innocence doth hie.\nBut they whose guilt within their bosoms lie\nImagine every eye beholds their blame;\nFor Lucrece thought he blush'd to her see shame:


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When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect\nOf spirit, Life, and bold audacity.\nSuch harmless creatures have a true respect\nTo talk in deeds, while others saucily\nPromise more speed, but do it leisurely:\nEven so this pattern of the worn-out age\nPawn'd honest looks, but laid no words to gage.


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His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,\nThat two red fires in both their faces blazed;\nShe thought he blush'd, as knowing Tarquin's lust,\nAnd, blushing with him, wistly on him gazed;\nHer earnest eye did make him more amazed:\nThe more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,\nThe more she thought he spied in her some blemish.


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But long she thinks till he return again,\nAnd yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.\nThe weary time she cannot entertain,\nFor now 'tis stale to sigh, to weep, and groan:\nSo woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,\nThat she her plaints a little while doth stay,\nPausing for means to mourn some newer way.


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At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece\nOf skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy:\nBefore the which is drawn the power of Greece.\nFor Helen's rape the city to destroy,\nThreatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;\nWhich the conceited painter drew so proud,\nAs heaven, it seem'd, to kiss the turrets bow'd.


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A thousand lamentable objects there,\nIn scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life:\nMany a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear,\nShed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife:\nThe red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife;\nAnd dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights,\nLike dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.


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There might you see the labouring pioner\nBegrimed with sweat, and smeared all with dust;\nAnd from the towers of Troy there would appear\nThe very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,\nGazing upon the Greeks with little lust:\nSuch sweet observance in this work was had,\nThat one might see those far-off eyes look sad.


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In great commanders grace and majesty\nYou might behold, triumphing in their faces;\nIn youth, quick bearing and dexterity;\nPale cowards, marching on with trembling paces;\nWhich heartless peasants did so well resemble,\nThat one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.


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In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art\nOf physiognomy might one behold!\nThe face of either cipher'd either's heart;\nTheir face their manners most expressly told:\nIn Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigor roll'd;\nBut the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent\nShow'd deep regard and smiling government.


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There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,\nAs 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight;\nMaking such sober action with his hand,\nThat it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight:\nIn speech, it seem'd, his beard, all silver white,\nWagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly\nThin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky.


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About him were a press of gaping faces,\nWhich seem'd to swallow up his sound advice;\nAll jointly listening, but with several graces,\nAs if some mermaid did their ears entice,\nSome high, some low, the painter was so nice;\nThe scalps of many, almost hid behind,\nTo jump up higher seem'd, to mock the mind.


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Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,\nHis nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;\nHere one being throng'd bears back, all boll'n and\nred;\nAnother smother'd seems to pelt and swear;\nAnd in their rage such signs of rage they bear,\nAs, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,\nIt seem'd they would debate with angry swords.


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For much imaginary work was there;\nConceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,\nThat for Achilles' image stood his spear,\nGriped in an armed hand; himself, behind,\nWas left unseen, save to the eye of mind:\nA hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,\nStood for the whole to be imagined.


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And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy\nWhen their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to\nfield,\nStood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy\nTo see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;\nAnd to their hope they such odd action yield,\nThat through their light joy seemed to appear,\nLike bright things stain'd, a kind of heavy fear.


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And from the strand of Dardan, where they fought,\nTo Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran,\nWhose waves to imitate the battle sought\nWith swelling ridges; and their ranks began\nTo break upon the galled shore, and than\nRetire again, till, meeting greater ranks,\nThey join and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.


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To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,\nTo find a face where all distress is stell'd.\nMany she sees where cares have carved some,\nBut none where all distress and dolour dwell'd,\nTill she despairing Hecuba beheld,\nStaring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes,\nWhich bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies.


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In her the painter had anatomized\nTime's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign:\nHer cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised;\nOf what she was no semblance did remain:\nHer blue blood changed to black in every vein,\nWanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,\nShow'd life imprison'd in a body dead.


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On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,\nAnd shapes her sorrow to the beldam's woes,\nWho nothing wants to answer her but cries,\nAnd bitter words to ban her cruel foes:\nThe painter was no god to lend her those;\nAnd therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,\nTo give her so much grief and not a tongue.


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'Poor instrument,' quoth she,'without a sound,\nI'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue;\nAnd drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,\nAnd rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong;\nAnd with my tears quench Troy that burns so long;\nAnd with my knife scratch out the angry eyes\nOf all the Greeks that are thine enemies.


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'Show me the strumpet that began this stir,\nThat with my nails her beauty I may tear.\nThy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur\nThis load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear:\nThy eye kindled the fire that burneth here;\nAnd here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,\nThe sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.


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'Why should the private pleasure of some one\nBecome the public plague of many moe?\nLet sin, alone committed, light alone\nUpon his head that hath transgressed so;\nLet guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:\nFor one's offence why should so many fall,\nTo plague a private sin in general?


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'Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,\nHere manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds,\nHere friend by friend in bloody channel lies,\nAnd friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,\nAnd one man's lust these many lives confounds:\nHad doting Priam cheque'd his son's desire,\nTroy had been bright with fame and not with fire.'


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Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes:\nFor sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,\nOnce set on ringing, with his own weight goes;\nThen little strength rings out the doleful knell:\nSo Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell\nTo pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;\nShe lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.


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She throws her eyes about the painting round,\nAnd whom she finds forlorn she doth lament.\nAt last she sees a wretched image bound,\nThat piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent:\nHis face, though full of cares, yet show'd content;\nOnward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,\nSo mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.


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In him the painter labour'd with his skill\nTo hide deceit, and give the harmless show\nAn humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,\nA brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;\nCheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so\nThat blushing red no guilty instance gave,\nNor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.


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But, like a constant and confirmed devil,\nHe entertain'd a show so seeming just,\nAnd therein so ensconced his secret evil,\nThat jealousy itself could not mistrust\nFalse-creeping craft and perjury should thrust\nInto so bright a day such black-faced storms,\nOr blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.


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The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew\nFor perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story\nThe credulous old Priam after slew;\nWhose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory\nOf rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,\nAnd little stars shot from their fixed places,\nWhen their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.


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This picture she advisedly perused,\nAnd chid the painter for his wondrous skill,\nSaying, some shape in Sinon's was abused;\nSo fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:\nAnd still on him she gazed; and gazing still,\nSuch signs of truth in his plain face she spied,\nThat she concludes the picture was belied.


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'It cannot be,' quoth she,'that so much guile'--\nShe would have said 'can lurk in such a look;'\nBut Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while,\nAnd from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot' took:\n'It cannot be' she in that sense forsook,\nAnd turn'd it thus,' It cannot be, I find,\nBut such a face should bear a wicked mind.


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'For even as subtle Sinon here is painted.\nSo sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,\nAs if with grief or travail he had fainted,\nTo me came Tarquin armed; so beguiled\nWith outward honesty, but yet defiled\nWith inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,\nSo did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.


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'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,\nTo see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds!\nPriam, why art thou old and yet not wise?\nFor every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds:\nHis eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;\nThose round clear pearls of his, that move thy pity,\nAre balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.


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'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell;\nFor Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,\nAnd in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell;\nThese contraries such unity do hold,\nOnly to flatter fools and make them bold:\nSo Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter,\nThat he finds means to burn his Troy with water.'


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Here, all enraged, such passion her assails,\nThat patience is quite beaten from her breast.\nShe tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,\nComparing him to that unhappy guest\nWhose deed hath made herself herself detest:\nAt last she smilingly with this gives o'er;\n'Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not be sore.'


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Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,\nAnd time doth weary time with her complaining.\nShe looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,\nAnd both she thinks too long with her remaining:\nShort time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining:\nThough woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps,\nAnd they that watch see time how slow it creeps.


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Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,\nThat she with painted images hath spent;\nBeing from the feeling of her own grief brought\nBy deep surmise of others' detriment;\nLosing her woes in shows of discontent.\nIt easeth some, though none it ever cured,\nTo think their dolour others have endured.


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But now the mindful messenger, come back,\nBrings home his lord and other company;\nWho finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black:\nAnd round about her tear-stained eye\nBlue circles stream'd; like rainbows in the sky:\nThese water-galls in her dim element\nForetell new storms to those already spent.


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Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,\nAmazedly in her sad face he stares:\nHer eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and raw,\nHer lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.\nHe hath no power to ask her how she fares:\nBoth stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,\nMet far from home, wondering each other's chance.


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At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,\nAnd thus begins: 'What uncouth ill event\nHath thee befall'n, that thou dost trembling stand?\nSweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?\nWhy art thou thus attired in discontent?\nUnmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,\nAnd tell thy grief, that we may give redress.'


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Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,\nEre once she can discharge one word of woe:\nAt length address'd to answer his desire,\nShe modestly prepares to let them know\nHer honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe;\nWhile Collatine and his consorted lords\nWith sad attention long to hear her words.


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And now this pale swan in her watery nest\nBegins the sad dirge of her certain ending;\n'Few words,' quoth she, 'Shall fit the trespass best,\nWhere no excuse can give the fault amending:\nIn me moe woes than words are now depending;\nAnd my laments would be drawn out too long,\nTo tell them all with one poor tired tongue.


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'Then be this all the task it hath to say\nDear husband, in the interest of thy bed\nA stranger came, and on that pillow lay\nWhere thou was wont to rest thy weary head;\nAnd what wrong else may be imagined\nBy foul enforcement might be done to me,\nFrom that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.


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'For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,\nWith shining falchion in my chamber came\nA creeping creature, with a flaming light,\nAnd softly cried 'Awake, thou Roman dame,\nAnd entertain my love; else lasting shame\nOn thee and thine this night I will inflict,\nIf thou my love's desire do contradict.


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''For some hard-favour'd groom of thine,' quoth he,\n'Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,\nI'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee\nAnd swear I found you where you did fulfil\nThe loathsome act of lust, and so did kill\nThe lechers in their deed: this act will be\nMy fame and thy perpetual infamy.'


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'With this, I did begin to start and cry;\nAnd then against my heart he sets his sword,\nSwearing, unless I took all patiently,\nI should not live to speak another word;\nSo should my shame still rest upon record,\nAnd never be forgot in mighty Rome\nTh' adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.


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'Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,\nAnd far the weaker with so strong a fear:\nMy bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;\nNo rightful plea might plead for justice there:\nHis scarlet lust came evidence to swear\nThat my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;\nAnd when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.


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'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!\nOr at the least this refuge let me find;\nThough my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,\nImmaculate and spotless is my mind;\nThat was not forced; that never was inclined\nTo accessary yieldings, but still pure\nDoth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'


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Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,\nWith head declined, and voice damm'd up with woe,\nWith sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,\nFrom lips new-waxen pale begins to blow\nThe grief away that stops his answer so:\nBut, wretched as he is, he strives in vain;\nWhat he breathes out his breath drinks up again.


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As through an arch the violent roaring tide\nOutruns the eye that doth behold his haste,\nYet in the eddy boundeth in his pride\nBack to the strait that forced him on so fast;\nIn rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past:\nEven so his sighs, his sorrows, make a saw,\nTo push grief on, and back the same grief draw.


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Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,\nAnd his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:\n'Dear lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth\nAnother power; no flood by raining slaketh.\nMy woe too sensible thy passion maketh\nMore feeling-painful: let it then suffice\nTo drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.


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'And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,\nFor she that was thy Lucrece, now attend me:\nBe suddenly revenged on my foe,\nThine, mine, his own: suppose thou dost defend me\nFrom what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me\nComes all too late, yet let the traitor die;\nFor sparing justice feeds iniquity.


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'But ere I name him, you fair lords,' quoth she,\nSpeaking to those that came with Collatine,\n'Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,\nWith swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;\nFor 'tis a meritorious fair design\nTo chase injustice with revengeful arms:\nKnights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'


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At this request, with noble disposition\nEach present lord began to promise aid,\nAs bound in knighthood to her imposition,\nLonging to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.\nBut she, that yet her sad task hath not said,\nThe protestation stops. 'O, speak, ' quoth she,\n'How may this forced stain be wiped from me?


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'What is the quality of mine offence,\nBeing constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?\nMay my pure mind with the foul act dispense,\nMy low-declined honour to advance?\nMay any terms acquit me from this chance?\nThe poison'd fountain clears itself again;\nAnd why not I from this compelled stain?'


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With this, they all at once began to say,\nHer body's stain her mind untainted clears;\nWhile with a joyless smile she turns away\nThe face, that map which deep impression bears\nOf hard misfortune, carved in it with tears.\n'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,\nBy my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.'


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Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,\nShe throws forth Tarquin's name; 'He, he,' she says,\nBut more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;\nTill after many accents and delays,\nUntimely breathings, sick and short assays,\nShe utters this, 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,\nThat guides this hand to give this wound to me.'


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Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast\nA harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed:\nThat blow did that it from the deep unrest\nOf that polluted prison where it breathed:\nHer contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd\nHer winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly\nLife's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.


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Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,\nStood Collatine and all his lordly crew;\nTill Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed,\nHimself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;\nAnd from the purple fountain Brutus drew\nThe murderous knife, and, as it left the place,\nHer blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;


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And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide\nIn two slow rivers, that the crimson blood\nCircles her body in on every side,\nWho, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood\nBare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.\nSome of her blood still pure and red remain'd,\nAnd some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.


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About the mourning and congealed face\nOf that black blood a watery rigol goes,\nWhich seems to weep upon the tainted place:\nAnd ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,\nCorrupted blood some watery token shows;\nAnd blood untainted still doth red abide,\nBlushing at that which is so putrified.


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'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius cries,\n'That life was mine which thou hast here deprived.\nIf in the child the father's image lies,\nWhere shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?\nThou wast not to this end from me derived.\nIf children predecease progenitors,\nWe are their offspring, and they none of ours.


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'Poor broken glass, I often did behold\nIn thy sweet semblance my old age new born;\nBut now that fresh fair mirror, dim and old,\nShows me a bare-boned death by time out-worn:\nO, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,\nAnd shivered all the beauty of my glass,\nThat I no more can see what once I was!


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'O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,\nIf they surcease to be that should survive.\nShall rotten death make conquest of the stronger\nAnd leave the faltering feeble souls alive?\nThe old bees die, the young possess their hive:\nThen live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see\nThy father die, and not thy father thee!


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By this, starts Collatine as from a dream,\nAnd bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;\nAnd then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream\nHe falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,\nAnd counterfeits to die with her a space;\nTill manly shame bids him possess his breath\nAnd live to be revenged on her death.


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The deep vexation of his inward soul\nHath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;\nWho, mad that sorrow should his use control,\nOr keep him from heart-easing words so long,\nBegins to talk; but through his lips do throng\nWeak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,\nThat no man could distinguish what he said.


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Yet sometime 'Tarquin' was pronounced plain,\nBut through his teeth, as if the name he tore.\nThis windy tempest, till it blow up rain,\nHeld back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;\nAt last it rains, and busy winds give o'er:\nThen son and father weep with equal strife\nWho should weep most, for daughter or for wife.


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The one doth call her his, the other his,\nYet neither may possess the claim they lay.\nThe father says 'She's mine.' 'O, mine she is,'\nReplies her husband: 'do not take away\nMy sorrow's interest; let no mourner say\nHe weeps for her, for she was only mine,\nAnd only must be wail'd by Collatine.'


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'O,' quoth Lucretius,' I did give that life\nWhich she too early and too late hath spill'd.'\n'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife,\nI owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.'\n'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours fill'd\nThe dispersed air, who, holding Lucrece' life,\nAnswer'd their cries, 'my daughter' and 'my wife.'


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Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,\nSeeing such emulation in their woe,\nBegan to clothe his wit in state and pride,\nBurying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.\nHe with the Romans was esteemed so\nAs silly-jeering idiots are with kings,\nFor sportive words and uttering foolish things:


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But now he throws that shallow habit by,\nWherein deep policy did him disguise;\nAnd arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,\nTo cheque the tears in Collatinus' eyes.\n'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth be, 'arise:\nLet my unsounded self, supposed a fool,\nNow set thy long-experienced wit to school.


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'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?\nDo wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?\nIs it revenge to give thyself a blow\nFor his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?\nSuch childish humour from weak minds proceeds:\nThy wretched wife mistook the matter so,\nTo slay herself, that should have slain her foe.


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'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart\nIn such relenting dew of lamentations;\nBut kneel with me and help to bear thy part,\nTo rouse our Roman gods with invocations,\nThat they will suffer these abominations,\nSince Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced,\nBy our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.


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'Now, by the Capitol that we adore,\nAnd by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd,\nBy heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's\nstore,\nBy all our country rights in Rome maintain'd,\nAnd by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd\nHer wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,\nWe will revenge the death of this true wife.'


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This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,\nAnd kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow;\nAnd to his protestation urged the rest,\nWho, wondering at him, did his words allow:\nThen jointly to the ground their knees they bow;\nAnd that deep vow, which Brutus made before,\nHe doth again repeat, and that they swore.


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When they had sworn to this advised doom,\nThey did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence;\nTo show her bleeding body thorough Rome,\nAnd so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:\nWhich being done with speedy diligence,\nThe Romans plausibly did give consent\nTo Tarquin's everlasting banishment.


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Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,\nHast thou, according to thy oath and band,\nBrought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,\nHere to make good the boisterous late appeal,\nWhich then our leisure would not let us hear,\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?


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Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,\nIf he appeal the duke on ancient malice;\nOr worthily, as a good subject should,\nOn some known ground of treachery in him?


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As near as I could sift him on that argument,\nOn some apparent danger seen in him\nAim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice.


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Then call them to our presence; face to face,\nAnd frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\nThe accuser and the accused freely speak:\nHigh-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,\nIn rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.


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Each day still better other's happiness;\nUntil the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\nAdd an immortal title to your crown!


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We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,\nAs well appeareth by the cause you come;\nNamely to appeal each other of high treason.\nCousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\nAgainst the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?


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First, heaven be the record to my speech!\nIn the devotion of a subject's love,\nTendering the precious safety of my prince,\nAnd free from other misbegotten hate,\nCome I appellant to this princely presence.\nNow, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\nAnd mark my greeting well; for what I speak\nMy body shall make good upon this earth,\nOr my divine soul answer it in heaven.\nThou art a traitor and a miscreant,\nToo good to be so and too bad to live,\nSince the more fair and crystal is the sky,\nThe uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\nOnce more, the more to aggravate the note,\nWith a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\nAnd wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,\nWhat my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.


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Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:\n'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\nThe bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\nCan arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\nThe blood is hot that must be cool'd for this:\nYet can I not of such tame patience boast\nAs to be hush'd and nought at all to say:\nFirst, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me\nFrom giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\nWhich else would post until it had return'd\nThese terms of treason doubled down his throat.\nSetting aside his high blood's royalty,\nAnd let him be no kinsman to my liege,\nI do defy him, and I spit at him;\nCall him a slanderous coward and a villain:\nWhich to maintain I would allow him odds,\nAnd meet him, were I tied to run afoot\nEven to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\nOr any other ground inhabitable,\nWhere ever Englishman durst set his foot.\nMean time let this defend my loyalty,\nBy all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.


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Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\nDisclaiming here the kindred of the king,\nAnd lay aside my high blood's royalty,\nWhich fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\nIf guilty dread have left thee so much strength\nAs to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:\nBy that and all the rites of knighthood else,\nWill I make good against thee, arm to arm,\nWhat I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.


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I take it up; and by that sword I swear\nWhich gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,\nI'll answer thee in any fair degree,\nOr chivalrous design of knightly trial:\nAnd when I mount, alive may I not light,\nIf I be traitor or unjustly fight!


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What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\nIt must be great that can inherit us\nSo much as of a thought of ill in him.


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Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;\nThat Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles\nIn name of lendings for your highness' soldiers,\nThe which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,\nLike a false traitor and injurious villain.\nBesides I say and will in battle prove,\nOr here or elsewhere to the furthest verge\nThat ever was survey'd by English eye,\nThat all the treasons for these eighteen years\nComplotted and contrived in this land\nFetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\nFurther I say and further will maintain\nUpon his bad life to make all this good,\nThat he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\nSuggest his soon-believing adversaries,\nAnd consequently, like a traitor coward,\nSluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:\nWhich blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\nEven from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\nTo me for justice and rough chastisement;\nAnd, by the glorious worth of my descent,\nThis arm shall do it, or this life be spent.


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O, let my sovereign turn away his face\nAnd bid his ears a little while be deaf,\nTill I have told this slander of his blood,\nHow God and good men hate so foul a liar.


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Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:\nWere he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\nAs he is but my father's brother's son,\nNow, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,\nSuch neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\nShould nothing privilege him, nor partialize\nThe unstooping firmness of my upright soul:\nHe is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\nFree speech and fearless I to thee allow.


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Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\nThrough the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\nThree parts of that receipt I had for Calais\nDisbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers;\nThe other part reserved I by consent,\nFor that my sovereign liege was in my debt\nUpon remainder of a dear account,\nSince last I went to France to fetch his queen:\nNow swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,\nI slew him not; but to my own disgrace\nNeglected my sworn duty in that case.\nFor you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\nThe honourable father to my foe\nOnce did I lay an ambush for your life,\nA trespass that doth vex my grieved soul\nBut ere I last received the sacrament\nI did confess it, and exactly begg'd\nYour grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.\nThis is my fault: as for the rest appeall'd,\nIt issues from the rancour of a villain,\nA recreant and most degenerate traitor\nWhich in myself I boldly will defend;\nAnd interchangeably hurl down my gage\nUpon this overweening traitor's foot,\nTo prove myself a loyal gentleman\nEven in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\nIn haste whereof, most heartily I pray\nYour highness to assign our trial day.


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Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;\nLet's purge this choler without letting blood:\nThis we prescribe, though no physician;\nDeep malice makes too deep incision;\nForget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;\nOur doctors say this is no month to bleed.\nGood uncle, let this end where it begun;\nWe'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.


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Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.\nMy life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\nThe one my duty owes; but my fair name,\nDespite of death that lives upon my grave,\nTo dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\nI am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,\nPierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\nThe which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\nWhich breathed this poison.


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Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.\nAnd I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\nThe purest treasure mortal times afford\nIs spotless reputation: that away,\nMen are but gilded loam or painted clay.\nA jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest\nIs a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\nMine honour is my life; both grow in one:\nTake honour from me, and my life is done:\nThen, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\nIn that I live and for that will I die.


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O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\nShall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight?\nOr with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\nBefore this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue\nShall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,\nOr sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\nThe slavish motive of recanting fear,\nAnd spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\nWhere shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.


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We were not born to sue, but to command;\nWhich since we cannot do to make you friends,\nBe ready, as your lives shall answer it,\nAt Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day:\nThere shall your swords and lances arbitrate\nThe swelling difference of your settled hate:\nSince we can not atone you, we shall see\nJustice design the victor's chivalry.\nLord marshal, command our officers at arms\nBe ready to direct these home alarms.


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Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\nDoth more solicit me than your exclaims,\nTo stir against the butchers of his life!\nBut since correction lieth in those hands\nWhich made the fault that we cannot correct,\nPut we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\nWho, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\nWill rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.


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Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\nHath love in thy old blood no living fire?\nEdward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\nWere as seven vials of his sacred blood,\nOr seven fair branches springing from one root:\nSome of those seven are dried by nature's course,\nSome of those branches by the Destinies cut;\nBut Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\nOne vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\nOne flourishing branch of his most royal root,\nIs crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,\nIs hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\nBy envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\nAh, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,\nThat metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee\nMade him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\nYet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent\nIn some large measure to thy father's death,\nIn that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\nWho was the model of thy father's life.\nCall it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:\nIn suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,\nThou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\nTeaching stern murder how to butcher thee:\nThat which in mean men we intitle patience\nIs pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\nWhat shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,\nThe best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.


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God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\nHis deputy anointed in His sight,\nHath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,\nLet heaven revenge; for I may never lift\nAn angry arm against His minister.


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Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\nThou goest to Coventry, there to behold\nOur cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:\nO, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\nThat it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\nOr, if misfortune miss the first career,\nBe Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,\nThey may break his foaming courser's back,\nAnd throw the rider headlong in the lists,\nA caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\nFarewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife\nWith her companion grief must end her life.


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Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,\nNot with the empty hollowness, but weight:\nI take my leave before I have begun,\nFor sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\nCommend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\nLo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so;\nThough this be all, do not so quickly go;\nI shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?--\nWith all good speed at Plashy visit me.\nAlack, and what shall good old York there see\nBut empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\nUnpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\nAnd what hear there for welcome but my groans?\nTherefore commend me; let him not come there,\nTo seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\nDesolate, desolate, will I hence and die:\nThe last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.


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Why, then, the champions are prepared, and stay\nFor nothing but his majesty's approach.\n[The trumpets sound, and KING RICHARD enters with]\nhis nobles, JOHN OF GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and\nothers. When they are set, enter THOMAS MOWBRAY in\narms, defendant, with a Herald]


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Marshal, demand of yonder champion\nThe cause of his arrival here in arms:\nAsk him his name and orderly proceed\nTo swear him in the justice of his cause.


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In God's name and the king's, say who thou art\nAnd why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,\nAgainst what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:\nSpeak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;\nAs so defend thee heaven and thy valour!


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My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\nWho hither come engaged by my oath--\nWhich God defend a knight should violate!--\nBoth to defend my loyalty and truth\nTo God, my king and my succeeding issue,\nAgainst the Duke of Hereford that appeals me\nAnd, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\nTo prove him, in defending of myself,\nA traitor to my God, my king, and me:\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n[The trumpets sound. Enter HENRY BOLINGBROKE,]\nappellant, in armour, with a Herald]


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Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\nBoth who he is and why he cometh hither\nThus plated in habiliments of war,\nAnd formally, according to our law,\nDepose him in the justice of his cause.


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What is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,\nBefore King Richard in his royal lists?\nAgainst whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\nSpeak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!


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Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby\nAm I; who ready here do stand in arms,\nTo prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\nIn lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nThat he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\nTo God of heaven, King Richard and to me;\nAnd as I truly fight, defend me heaven!


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On pain of death, no person be so bold\nOr daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\nExcept the marshal and such officers\nAppointed to direct these fair designs.


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Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\nAnd bow my knee before his majesty:\nFor Mowbray and myself are like two men\nThat vow a long and weary pilgrimage;\nThen let us take a ceremonious leave\nAnd loving farewell of our several friends.


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We will descend and fold him in our arms.\nCousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\nSo be thy fortune in this royal fight!\nFarewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\nLament we may, but not revenge thee dead.


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O let no noble eye profane a tear\nFor me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:\nAs confident as is the falcon's flight\nAgainst a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\nMy loving lord, I take my leave of you;\nOf you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\nNot sick, although I have to do with death,\nBut lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\nLo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\nThe daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:\nO thou, the earthly author of my blood,\nWhose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\nDoth with a twofold vigour lift me up\nTo reach at victory above my head,\nAdd proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;\nAnd with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\nThat it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,\nAnd furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,\nEven in the lusty havior of his son.


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God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\nBe swift like lightning in the execution;\nAnd let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\nFall like amazing thunder on the casque\nOf thy adverse pernicious enemy:\nRouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.


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However God or fortune cast my lot,\nThere lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\nA loyal, just and upright gentleman:\nNever did captive with a freer heart\nCast off his chains of bondage and embrace\nHis golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\nMore than my dancing soul doth celebrate\nThis feast of battle with mine adversary.\nMost mighty liege, and my companion peers,\nTake from my mouth the wish of happy years:\nAs gentle and as jocund as to jest\nGo I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.


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Farewell, my lord: securely I espy\nVirtue with valour couched in thine eye.\nOrder the trial, marshal, and begin.


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Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,\nStands here for God, his sovereign and himself,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nTo prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\nA traitor to his God, his king and him;\nAnd dares him to set forward to the fight.


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Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\nOn pain to be found false and recreant,\nBoth to defend himself and to approve\nHenry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\nTo God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;\nCourageously and with a free desire\nAttending but the signal to begin.


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Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\n[A charge sounded]\nStay, the king hath thrown his warder down.


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Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,\nAnd both return back to their chairs again:\nWithdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound\nWhile we return these dukes what we decree.\n[A long flourish]\nDraw near,\nAnd list what with our council we have done.\nFor that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\nWith that dear blood which it hath fostered;\nAnd for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\nOf civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\nAnd for we think the eagle-winged pride\nOf sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\nWith rival-hating envy, set on you\nTo wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\nDraws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\nWhich so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,\nWith harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\nAnd grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\nMight from our quiet confines fright fair peace\nAnd make us wade even in our kindred's blood,\nTherefore, we banish you our territories:\nYou, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\nTill twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\nShall not regreet our fair dominions,\nBut tread the stranger paths of banishment.


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Your will be done: this must my comfort be,\nSun that warms you here shall shine on me;\nAnd those his golden beams to you here lent\nShall point on me and gild my banishment.


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Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\nWhich I with some unwillingness pronounce:\nThe sly slow hours shall not determinate\nThe dateless limit of thy dear exile;\nThe hopeless word of 'never to return'\nBreathe I against thee, upon pain of life.


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A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\nAnd all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:\nA dearer merit, not so deep a maim\nAs to be cast forth in the common air,\nHave I deserved at your highness' hands.\nThe language I have learn'd these forty years,\nMy native English, now I must forego:\nAnd now my tongue's use is to me no more\nThan an unstringed viol or a harp,\nOr like a cunning instrument cased up,\nOr, being open, put into his hands\nThat knows no touch to tune the harmony:\nWithin my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\nDoubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\nAnd dull unfeeling barren ignorance\nIs made my gaoler to attend on me.\nI am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\nToo far in years to be a pupil now:\nWhat is thy sentence then but speechless death,\nWhich robs my tongue from breathing native breath?


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Return again, and take an oath with thee.\nLay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\nSwear by the duty that you owe to God--\nOur part therein we banish with yourselves--\nTo keep the oath that we administer:\nYou never shall, so help you truth and God!\nEmbrace each other's love in banishment;\nNor never look upon each other's face;\nNor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\nThis louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\nNor never by advised purpose meet\nTo plot, contrive, or complot any ill\n'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.


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Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--\nBy this time, had the king permitted us,\nOne of our souls had wander'd in the air.\nBanish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\nAs now our flesh is banish'd from this land:\nConfess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\nSince thou hast far to go, bear not along\nThe clogging burthen of a guilty soul.


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No, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,\nMy name be blotted from the book of life,\nAnd I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\nBut what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;\nAnd all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.\nFarewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;\nSave back to England, all the world's my way.


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Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\nI see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect\nHath from the number of his banish'd years\nPluck'd four away.\n[To HENRY BOLINGBROKE]\nSix frozen winter spent,\nReturn with welcome home from banishment.


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How long a time lies in one little word!\nFour lagging winters and four wanton springs\nEnd in a word: such is the breath of kings.


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I thank my liege, that in regard of me\nHe shortens four years of my son's exile:\nBut little vantage shall I reap thereby;\nFor, ere the six years that he hath to spend\nCan change their moons and bring their times about\nMy oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\nShall be extinct with age and endless night;\nMy inch of taper will be burnt and done,\nAnd blindfold death not let me see my son.


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But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:\nShorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,\nAnd pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\nThou canst help time to furrow me with age,\nBut stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\nThy word is current with him for my death,\nBut dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.


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Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,\nWhereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:\nWhy at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?


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Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\nYou urged me as a judge; but I had rather\nYou would have bid me argue like a father.\nO, had it been a stranger, not my child,\nTo smooth his fault I should have been more mild:\nA partial slander sought I to avoid,\nAnd in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\nAlas, I look'd when some of you should say,\nI was too strict to make mine own away;\nBut you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\nAgainst my will to do myself this wrong.


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I have too few to take my leave of you,\nWhen the tongue's office should be prodigal\nTo breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.


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The sullen passage of thy weary steps\nEsteem as foil wherein thou art to set\nThe precious jewel of thy home return.


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Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make\nWill but remember me what a deal of world\nI wander from the jewels that I love.\nMust I not serve a long apprenticehood\nTo foreign passages, and in the end,\nHaving my freedom, boast of nothing else\nBut that I was a journeyman to grief?


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All places that the eye of heaven visits\nAre to a wise man ports and happy havens.\nTeach thy necessity to reason thus;\nThere is no virtue like necessity.\nThink not the king did banish thee,\nBut thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,\nWhere it perceives it is but faintly borne.\nGo, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour\nAnd not the king exiled thee; or suppose\nDevouring pestilence hangs in our air\nAnd thou art flying to a fresher clime:\nLook, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\nTo lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:\nSuppose the singing birds musicians,\nThe grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\nThe flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\nThan a delightful measure or a dance;\nFor gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\nThe man that mocks at it and sets it light.


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O, who can hold a fire in his hand\nBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\nOr cloy the hungry edge of appetite\nBy bare imagination of a feast?\nOr wallow naked in December snow\nBy thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\nO, no! the apprehension of the good\nGives but the greater feeling to the worse:\nFell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\nThan when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.


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Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\nMy mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\nWhere'er I wander, boast of this I can,\nThough banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.


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[Exeunt]\n[Enter KING RICHARD II, with BAGOT and GREEN at one]\ndoor; and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another]


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Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\nWhich then blew bitterly against our faces,\nAwaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\nDid grace our hollow parting with a tear.


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'Farewell:'\nAnd, for my heart disdained that my tongue\nShould so profane the word, that taught me craft\nTo counterfeit oppression of such grief\nThat words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\nMarry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours\nAnd added years to his short banishment,\nHe should have had a volume of farewells;\nBut since it would not, he had none of me.


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He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\nWhen time shall call him home from banishment,\nWhether our kinsman come to see his friends.\nOurself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green\nObserved his courtship to the common people;\nHow he did seem to dive into their hearts\nWith humble and familiar courtesy,\nWhat reverence he did throw away on slaves,\nWooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\nAnd patient underbearing of his fortune,\nAs 'twere to banish their affects with him.\nOff goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\nA brace of draymen bid God speed him well\nAnd had the tribute of his supple knee,\nWith 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;'\nAs were our England in reversion his,\nAnd he our subjects' next degree in hope.


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Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.\nNow for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\nExpedient manage must be made, my liege,\nEre further leisure yield them further means\nFor their advantage and your highness' loss.


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We will ourself in person to this war:\nAnd, for our coffers, with too great a court\nAnd liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\nWe are inforced to farm our royal realm;\nThe revenue whereof shall furnish us\nFor our affairs in hand: if that come short,\nOur substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\nWhereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\nThey shall subscribe them for large sums of gold\nAnd send them after to supply our wants;\nFor we will make for Ireland presently.\n[Enter BUSHY]\nBushy, what news?


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Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\nSuddenly taken; and hath sent post haste\nTo entreat your majesty to visit him.


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Now put it, God, in the physician's mind\nTo help him to his grave immediately!\nThe lining of his coffers shall make coats\nTo deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\nCome, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:\nPray God we may make haste, and come too late!


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O, but they say the tongues of dying men\nEnforce attention like deep harmony:\nWhere words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,\nFor they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.\nHe that no more must say is listen'd more\nThan they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\nMore are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:\nThe setting sun, and music at the close,\nAs the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\nWrit in remembrance more than things long past:\nThough Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\nMy death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.


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No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\nAs praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\nLascivious metres, to whose venom sound\nThe open ear of youth doth always listen;\nReport of fashions in proud Italy,\nWhose manners still our tardy apish nation\nLimps after in base imitation.\nWhere doth the world thrust forth a vanity--\nSo it be new, there's no respect how vile--\nThat is not quickly buzzed into his ears?\nThen all too late comes counsel to be heard,\nWhere will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\nDirect not him whose way himself will choose:\n'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.


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Methinks I am a prophet new inspired\nAnd thus expiring do foretell of him:\nHis rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\nFor violent fires soon burn out themselves;\nSmall showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\nHe tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\nWith eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:\nLight vanity, insatiate cormorant,\nConsuming means, soon preys upon itself.\nThis royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,\nThis earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\nThis other Eden, demi-paradise,\nThis fortress built by Nature for herself\nAgainst infection and the hand of war,\nThis happy breed of men, this little world,\nThis precious stone set in the silver sea,\nWhich serves it in the office of a wall,\nOr as a moat defensive to a house,\nAgainst the envy of less happier lands,\nThis blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\nThis nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\nFear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,\nRenowned for their deeds as far from home,\nFor Christian service and true chivalry,\nAs is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,\nOf the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,\nThis land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\nDear for her reputation through the world,\nIs now leased out, I die pronouncing it,\nLike to a tenement or pelting farm:\nEngland, bound in with the triumphant sea\nWhose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\nOf watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\nWith inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:\nThat England, that was wont to conquer others,\nHath made a shameful conquest of itself.\nAh, would the scandal vanish with my life,\nHow happy then were my ensuing death!\n[Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE,]\nBUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD WILLOUGHBY]


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O how that name befits my composition!\nOld Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:\nWithin me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\nAnd who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\nFor sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\nWatching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:\nThe pleasure that some fathers feed upon,\nIs my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;\nAnd therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:\nGaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\nWhose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.


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No, misery makes sport to mock itself:\nSince thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\nI mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.


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Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;\nIll in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\nThy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\nWherein thou liest in reputation sick;\nAnd thou, too careless patient as thou art,\nCommit'st thy anointed body to the cure\nOf those physicians that first wounded thee:\nA thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\nWhose compass is no bigger than thy head;\nAnd yet, incaged in so small a verge,\nThe waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\nO, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\nSeen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\nFrom forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\nDeposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\nWhich art possess'd now to depose thyself.\nWhy, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\nIt were a shame to let this land by lease;\nBut for thy world enjoying but this land,\nIs it not more than shame to shame it so?\nLandlord of England art thou now, not king:\nThy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--


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A lunatic lean-witted fool,\nPresuming on an ague's privilege,\nDarest with thy frozen admonition\nMake pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\nWith fury from his native residence.\nNow, by my seat's right royal majesty,\nWert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\nThis tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\nShould run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.


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O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\nFor that I was his father Edward's son;\nThat blood already, like the pelican,\nHast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:\nMy brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,\nWhom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!\nMay be a precedent and witness good\nThat thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:\nJoin with the present sickness that I have;\nAnd thy unkindness be like crooked age,\nTo crop at once a too long wither'd flower.\nLive in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\nThese words hereafter thy tormentors be!\nConvey me to my bed, then to my grave:\nLove they to live that love and honour have.


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I do beseech your majesty, impute his words\nTo wayward sickliness and age in him:\nHe loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\nAs Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.


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Nay, nothing; all is said\nHis tongue is now a stringless instrument;\nWords, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.


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The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\nHis time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\nSo much for that. Now for our Irish wars:\nWe must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\nWhich live like venom where no venom else\nBut only they have privilege to live.\nAnd for these great affairs do ask some charge,\nTowards our assistance we do seize to us\nThe plate, corn, revenues and moveables,\nWhereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.


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How long shall I be patient? ah, how long\nShall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\nNot Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment\nNot Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\nNor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\nAbout his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\nHave ever made me sour my patient cheek,\nOr bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\nI am the last of noble Edward's sons,\nOf whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:\nIn war was never lion raged more fierce,\nIn peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\nThan was that young and princely gentleman.\nHis face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\nAccomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\nBut when he frown'd, it was against the French\nAnd not against his friends; his noble hand\nDid will what he did spend and spent not that\nWhich his triumphant father's hand had won;\nHis hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\nBut bloody with the enemies of his kin.\nO Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\nOr else he never would compare between.


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O my liege,\nPardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased\nNot to be pardon'd, am content withal.\nSeek you to seize and gripe into your hands\nThe royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\nIs not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?\nWas not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?\nDid not the one deserve to have an heir?\nIs not his heir a well-deserving son?\nTake Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\nHis charters and his customary rights;\nLet not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\nBe not thyself; for how art thou a king\nBut by fair sequence and succession?\nNow, afore God--God forbid I say true!--\nIf you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\nCall in the letters patent that he hath\nBy his attorneys-general to sue\nHis livery, and deny his offer'd homage,\nYou pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\nYou lose a thousand well-disposed hearts\nAnd prick my tender patience, to those thoughts\nWhich honour and allegiance cannot think.


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I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:\nWhat will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;\nBut by bad courses may be understood\nThat their events can never fall out good.


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Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:\nBid him repair to us to Ely House\nTo see this business. To-morrow next\nWe will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:\nAnd we create, in absence of ourself,\nOur uncle York lord governor of England;\nFor he is just and always loved us well.\nCome on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;\nBe merry, for our time of stay is short\n[Flourish. Exeunt KING RICHARD II, QUEEN, DUKE OF]\nAUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT]


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Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\nIf it be so, out with it boldly, man;\nQuick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.


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No good at all that I can do for him;\nUnless you call it good to pity him,\nBereft and gelded of his patrimony.


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Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\nIn him, a royal prince, and many moe\nOf noble blood in this declining land.\nThe king is not himself, but basely led\nBy flatterers; and what they will inform,\nMerely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,\nThat will the king severely prosecute\n'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.


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The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,\nAnd quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined\nFor ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.


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And daily new exactions are devised,\nAs blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:\nBut what, o' God's name, doth become of this?


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Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\nBut basely yielded upon compromise\nThat which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:\nMore hath he spent in peace than they in wars.


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He hath not money for these Irish wars,\nHis burthenous taxations notwithstanding,\nBut by the robbing of the banish'd duke.


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His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!\nBut, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\nYet see no shelter to avoid the storm;\nWe see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\nAnd yet we strike not, but securely perish.


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We see the very wreck that we must suffer;\nAnd unavoided is the danger now,\nFor suffering so the causes of our wreck.


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Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death\nI spy life peering; but I dare not say\nHow near the tidings of our comfort is.


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Be confident to speak, Northumberland:\nWe three are but thyself; and, speaking so,\nThy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.


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Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay\nIn Brittany, received intelligence\nThat Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\n[--]\nThat late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\nHis brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\nSir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\nSir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,\nAll these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne\nWith eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\nAre making hither with all due expedience\nAnd shortly mean to touch our northern shore:\nPerhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\nThe first departing of the king for Ireland.\nIf then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\nImp out our drooping country's broken wing,\nRedeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\nWipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt\nAnd make high majesty look like itself,\nAway with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\nBut if you faint, as fearing to do so,\nStay and be secret, and myself will go.


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Madam, your majesty is too much sad:\nYou promised, when you parted with the king,\nTo lay aside life-harming heaviness\nAnd entertain a cheerful disposition.


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To please the king I did; to please myself\nI cannot do it; yet I know no cause\nWhy I should welcome such a guest as grief,\nSave bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\nAs my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks,\nSome unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\nIs coming towards me, and my inward soul\nWith nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,\nMore than with parting from my lord the king.


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Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\nWhich shows like grief itself, but is not so;\nFor sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\nDivides one thing entire to many objects;\nLike perspectives, which rightly gazed upon\nShow nothing but confusion, eyed awry\nDistinguish form: so your sweet majesty,\nLooking awry upon your lord's departure,\nFind shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;\nWhich, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\nOf what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,\nMore than your lord's departure weep not: more's not seen;\nOr if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\nWhich for things true weeps things imaginary.


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It may be so; but yet my inward soul\nPersuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,\nI cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\nAs, though on thinking on no thought I think,\nMakes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.


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'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived\nFrom some forefather grief; mine is not so,\nFor nothing had begot my something grief;\nOr something hath the nothing that I grieve:\n'Tis in reversion that I do possess;\nBut what it is, that is not yet known; what\nI cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.


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Why hopest thou so? 'tis better hope he is;\nFor his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:\nThen wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?


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That he, our hope, might have retired his power,\nAnd driven into despair an enemy's hope,\nWho strongly hath set footing in this land:\nThe banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\nAnd with uplifted arms is safe arrived\nAt Ravenspurgh.


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Ah, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,\nThe Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\nThe Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\nWith all their powerful friends, are fled to him.


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We have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester\nHath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\nAnd all the household servants fled with him\nTo Bolingbroke.


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So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\nAnd Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:\nNow hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,\nAnd I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\nHave woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.


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Who shall hinder me?\nI will despair, and be at enmity\nWith cozening hope: he is a flatterer,\nA parasite, a keeper back of death,\nWho gently would dissolve the bands of life,\nWhich false hope lingers in extremity.


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With signs of war about his aged neck:\nO, full of careful business are his looks!\nUncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.


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Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts:\nComfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\nWhere nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.\nYour husband, he is gone to save far off,\nWhilst others come to make him lose at home:\nHere am I left to underprop his land,\nWho, weak with age, cannot support myself:\nNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\nNow shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.


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He was? Why, so! go all which way it will!\nThe nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,\nAnd will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\nSirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\nBid her send me presently a thousand pound:\nHold, take my ring.


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My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\nTo-day, as I came by, I called there;\nBut I shall grieve you to report the rest.


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God for his mercy! what a tide of woes\nComes rushing on this woeful land at once!\nI know not what to do: I would to God,\nSo my untruth had not provoked him to it,\nThe king had cut off my head with my brother's.\nWhat, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\nHow shall we do for money for these wars?\nCome, sister,--cousin, I would say--pray, pardon me.\nGo, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts\nAnd bring away the armour that is there.\n[Exit Servant]\nGentlemen, will you go muster men?\nIf I know how or which way to order these affairs\nThus thrust disorderly into my hands,\nNever believe me. Both are my kinsmen:\nThe one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\nAnd duty bids defend; the other again\nIs my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,\nWhom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\nWell, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I'll\nDispose of you.\nGentlemen, go, muster up your men,\nAnd meet me presently at Berkeley.\nI should to Plashy too;\nBut time will not permit: all is uneven,\nAnd every thing is left at six and seven.


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The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland,\nBut none returns. For us to levy power\nProportionable to the enemy\nIs all unpossible.


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And that's the wavering commons: for their love\nLies in their purses, and whoso empties them\nBy so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.


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Thither will I with you; for little office\nThe hateful commons will perform for us,\nExcept like curs to tear us all to pieces.\nWill you go along with us?


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No; I will to Ireland to his majesty.\nFarewell: if heart's presages be not vain,\nWe three here art that ne'er shall meet again.


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Alas, poor duke! the task he undertakes\nIs numbering sands and drinking oceans dry:\nWhere one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\nFarewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.


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Believe me, noble lord,\nI am a stranger here in Gloucestershire:\nThese high wild hills and rough uneven ways\nDraws out our miles, and makes them wearisome,\nAnd yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\nMaking the hard way sweet and delectable.\nBut I bethink me what a weary way\nFrom Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\nIn Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\nWhich, I protest, hath very much beguiled\nThe tediousness and process of my travel:\nBut theirs is sweetened with the hope to have\nThe present benefit which I possess;\nAnd hope to joy is little less in joy\nThan hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords\nShall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\nBy sight of what I have, your noble company.


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It is my son, young Harry Percy,\nSent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\nHarry, how fares your uncle?


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No, my good Lord; he hath forsook the court,\nBroken his staff of office and dispersed\nThe household of the king.


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Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\nBut he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\nTo offer service to the Duke of Hereford,\nAnd sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\nWhat power the Duke of York had levied there;\nThen with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.


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No, my good lord, for that is not forgot\nWhich ne'er I did remember: to my knowledge,\nI never in my life did look on him.


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My gracious lord, I tender you my service,\nSuch as it is, being tender, raw and young:\nWhich elder days shall ripen and confirm\nTo more approved service and desert.


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I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\nI count myself in nothing else so happy\nAs in a soul remembering my good friends;\nAnd, as my fortune ripens with thy love,\nIt shall be still thy true love's recompense:\nMy heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.


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There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\nMann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\nAnd in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour;\nNone else of name and noble estimate.


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Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\nA banish'd traitor: all my treasury\nIs yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich'd\nShall be your love and labour's recompense.


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Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\nWhich, till my infant fortune comes to years,\nStands for my bounty. But who comes here?


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My lord, my answer is--to Lancaster;\nAnd I am come to seek that name in England;\nAnd I must find that title in your tongue,\nBefore I make reply to aught you say.


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Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\nTo raze one title of your honour out:\nTo you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,\nFrom the most gracious regent of this land,\nThe Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\nTo take advantage of the absent time\nAnd fright our native peace with self-born arms.


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Tut, tut!\nGrace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:\nI am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace.'\nIn an ungracious mouth is but profane.\nWhy have those banish'd and forbidden legs\nDared once to touch a dust of England's ground?\nBut then more 'why?' why have they dared to march\nSo many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\nFrighting her pale-faced villages with war\nAnd ostentation of despised arms?\nComest thou because the anointed king is hence?\nWhy, foolish boy, the king is left behind,\nAnd in my loyal bosom lies his power.\nWere I but now the lord of such hot youth\nAs when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\nRescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\nFrom forth the ranks of many thousand French,\nO, then how quickly should this arm of mine.\nNow prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee\nAnd minister correction to thy fault!


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Even in condition of the worst degree,\nIn gross rebellion and detested treason:\nThou art a banish'd man, and here art come\nBefore the expiration of thy time,\nIn braving arms against thy sovereign.


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As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\nBut as I come, I come for Lancaster.\nAnd, noble uncle, I beseech your grace\nLook on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:\nYou are my father, for methinks in you\nI see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,\nWill you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\nA wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\nPluck'd from my arms perforce and given away\nTo upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\nIf that my cousin king be King of England,\nIt must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\nYou have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\nHad you first died, and he been thus trod down,\nHe should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,\nTo rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\nI am denied to sue my livery here,\nAnd yet my letters-patents give me leave:\nMy father's goods are all distrain'd and sold,\nAnd these and all are all amiss employ'd.\nWhat would you have me do? I am a subject,\nAnd I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;\nAnd therefore, personally I lay my claim\nTo my inheritance of free descent.


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My lords of England, let me tell you this:\nI have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs\nAnd laboured all I could to do him right;\nBut in this kind to come, in braving arms,\nBe his own carver and cut out his way,\nTo find out right with wrong, it may not be;\nAnd you that do abet him in this kind\nCherish rebellion and are rebels all.


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The noble duke hath sworn his coming is\nBut for his own; and for the right of that\nWe all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\nAnd let him ne'er see joy that breaks that oath!


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Well, well, I see the issue of these arms:\nI cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\nBecause my power is weak and all ill left:\nBut if I could, by Him that gave me life,\nI would attach you all and make you stoop\nUnto the sovereign mercy of the king;\nBut since I cannot, be it known to you\nI do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\nUnless you please to enter in the castle\nAnd there repose you for this night.


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An offer, uncle, that we will accept:\nBut we must win your grace to go with usTo Bristol castle, which they say is held\nBy Bushy, Bagot and their complices,\nThe caterpillars of the commonwealth,\nWhich I have sworn to weed and pluck away.


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It may be I will go with you: but yet I'll pause;\nFor I am loath to break our country's laws.\nNor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:\nThings past redress are now with me past care.


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My lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days,\nAnd hardly kept our countrymen together,\nAnd yet we hear no tidings from the king;\nTherefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.


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'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.\nThe bay-trees in our country are all wither'd\nAnd meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\nThe pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth\nAnd lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\nRich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,\nThe one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\nThe other to enjoy by rage and war:\nThese signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\nFarewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,\nAs well assured Richard their king is dead.


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Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind\nI see thy glory like a shooting star\nFall to the base earth from the firmament.\nThy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\nWitnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:\nThy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,\nAnd crossly to thy good all fortune goes.


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[Exit]\n[Enter HENRY BOLINGBROKE, DUKE OF YORK,]\nNORTHUMBERLAND, LORD ROSS, HENRY PERCY, LORD\nWILLOUGHBY, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners]


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Bring forth these men.\nBushy and Green, I will not vex your souls--\nSince presently your souls must part your bodies--\nWith too much urging your pernicious lives,\nFor 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\nFrom off my hands, here in the view of men\nI will unfold some causes of your deaths.\nYou have misled a prince, a royal king,\nA happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\nBy you unhappied and disfigured clean:\nYou have in manner with your sinful hours\nMade a divorce betwixt his queen and him,\nBroke the possession of a royal bed\nAnd stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\nWith tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.\nMyself, a prince by fortune of my birth,\nNear to the king in blood, and near in love\nTill you did make him misinterpret me,\nHave stoop'd my neck under your injuries,\nAnd sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\nEating the bitter bread of banishment;\nWhilst you have fed upon my signories,\nDispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\nFrom my own windows torn my household coat,\nRazed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,\nSave men's opinions and my living blood,\nTo show the world I am a gentleman.\nThis and much more, much more than twice all this,\nCondemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over\nTo execution and the hand of death.


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My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\n[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND and others, with the]\nprisoners]\nUncle, you say the queen is at your house;\nFor God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:\nTell her I send to her my kind commends;\nTake special care my greetings be deliver'd.


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Thank, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away.\nTo fight with Glendower and his complices:\nAwhile to work, and after holiday.


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[Exeunt]\n[Drums; flourish and colours. Enter KING RICHARD]\nII, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, DUKE OF AUMERLE, and Soldiers]


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Needs must I like it well: I weep for joy\nTo stand upon my kingdom once again.\nDear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\nThough rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:\nAs a long-parted mother with her child\nPlays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\nSo, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,\nAnd do thee favours with my royal hands.\nFeed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\nNor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\nBut let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\nAnd heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,\nDoing annoyance to the treacherous feet\nWhich with usurping steps do trample thee:\nYield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\nAnd when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\nGuard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder\nWhose double tongue may with a mortal touch\nThrow death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\nMock not my senseless conjuration, lords:\nThis earth shall have a feeling and these stones\nProve armed soldiers, ere her native king\nShall falter under foul rebellion's arms.


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Fear not, my lord: that Power that made you king\nHath power to keep you king in spite of all.\nThe means that heaven yields must be embraced,\nAnd not neglected; else, if heaven would,\nAnd we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\nThe proffer'd means of succor and redress.


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He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\nWhilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\nGrows strong and great in substance and in power.


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Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\nThat when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\nBehind the globe, that lights the lower world,\nThen thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\nIn murders and in outrage, boldly here;\nBut when from under this terrestrial ball\nHe fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\nAnd darts his light through every guilty hole,\nThen murders, treasons and detested sins,\nThe cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\nStand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\nSo when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\nWho all this while hath revell'd in the night\nWhilst we were wandering with the antipodes,\nShall see us rising in our throne, the east,\nHis treasons will sit blushing in his face,\nNot able to endure the sight of day,\nBut self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\nNot all the water in the rough rude sea\nCan wash the balm off from an anointed king;\nThe breath of worldly men cannot depose\nThe deputy elected by the Lord:\nFor every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\nTo lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\nGod for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\nA glorious angel: then, if angels fight,\nWeak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.\n[Enter EARL OF SALISBURY]\nWelcome, my lord. how far off lies your power?


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Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\nThan this weak arm: discomfort guides my tongue\nAnd bids me speak of nothing but despair.\nOne day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\nHath clouded all thy happy days on earth:\nO, call back yesterday, bid time return,\nAnd thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\nTo-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\nO'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state:\nFor all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead.\nAre gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed and fled.


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But now the blood of twenty thousand men\nDid triumph in my face, and they are fled;\nAnd, till so much blood thither come again,\nHave I not reason to look pale and dead?\nAll souls that will be safe fly from my side,\nFor time hath set a blot upon my pride.


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I had forgot myself; am I not king?\nAwake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\nIs not the king's name twenty thousand names?\nArm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\nAt thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\nYe favourites of a king: are we not high?\nHigh be our thoughts: I know my uncle York\nHath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?


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Mine ear is open and my heart prepared;\nThe worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\nSay, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care\nAnd what loss is it to be rid of care?\nStrives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\nGreater he shall not be; if he serve God,\nWe'll serve Him too and be his fellow so:\nRevolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;\nThey break their faith to God as well as us:\nCry woe, destruction, ruin and decay:\nThe worst is death, and death will have his day.


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Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd\nTo bear the tidings of calamity.\nLike an unseasonable stormy day,\nWhich makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\nAs if the world were all dissolved to tears,\nSo high above his limits swells the rage\nOf Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\nWith hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\nWhite-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\nAgainst thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\nStrive to speak big and clap their female joints\nIn stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:\nThe very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\nOf double-fatal yew against thy state;\nYea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\nAgainst thy seat: both young and old rebel,\nAnd all goes worse than I have power to tell.


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Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so ill.\nWhere is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?\nWhat is become of Bushy? where is Green?\nThat they have let the dangerous enemy\nMeasure our confines with such peaceful steps?\nIf we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:\nI warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.


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O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\nDogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\nSnakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\nThree Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\nWould they make peace? terrible hell make war\nUpon their spotted souls for this offence!


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Sweet love, I see, changing his property,\nTurns to the sourest and most deadly hate:\nAgain uncurse their souls; their peace is made\nWith heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\nHave felt the worst of death's destroying wound\nAnd lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.


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No matter where; of comfort no man speak:\nLet's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\nMake dust our paper and with rainy eyes\nWrite sorrow on the bosom of the earth,\nLet's choose executors and talk of wills:\nAnd yet not so, for what can we bequeath\nSave our deposed bodies to the ground?\nOur lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,\nAnd nothing can we call our own but death\nAnd that small model of the barren earth\nWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones.\nFor God's sake, let us sit upon the ground\nAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings;\nHow some have been deposed; some slain in war,\nSome haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;\nSome poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;\nAll murder'd: for within the hollow crown\nThat rounds the mortal temples of a king\nKeeps Death his court and there the antic sits,\nScoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,\nAllowing him a breath, a little scene,\nTo monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,\nInfusing him with self and vain conceit,\nAs if this flesh which walls about our life,\nWere brass impregnable, and humour'd thus\nComes at the last and with a little pin\nBores through his castle wall, and farewell king!\nCover your heads and mock not flesh and blood\nWith solemn reverence: throw away respect,\nTradition, form and ceremonious duty,\nFor you have but mistook me all this while:\nI live with bread like you, feel want,\nTaste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\nHow can you say to me, I am a king?


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My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\nBut presently prevent the ways to wail.\nTo fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\nGives in your weakness strength unto your foe,\nAnd so your follies fight against yourself.\nFear and be slain; no worse can come to fight:\nAnd fight and die is death destroying death;\nWhere fearing dying pays death servile breath.


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Thou chidest me well: proud Bolingbroke, I come\nTo change blows with thee for our day of doom.\nThis ague fit of fear is over-blown;\nAn easy task it is to win our own.\nSay, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\nSpeak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.


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Men judge by the complexion of the sky\nThe state and inclination of the day:\nSo may you by my dull and heavy eye,\nMy tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\nI play the torturer, by small and small\nTo lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\nYour uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke,\nAnd all your northern castles yielded up,\nAnd all your southern gentlemen in arms\nUpon his party.


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Thou hast said enough.\nBeshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\n[To DUKE OF AUMERLE]\nOf that sweet way I was in to despair!\nWhat say you now? what comfort have we now?\nBy heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\nThat bids me be of comfort any more.\nGo to Flint castle: there I'll pine away;\nA king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\nThat power I have, discharge; and let them go\nTo ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\nFor I have none: let no man speak again\nTo alter this, for counsel is but vain.


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He does me double wrong\nThat wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\nDischarge my followers: let them hence away,\nFrom Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.


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[Exeunt]\n[Enter, with drum and colours, HENRY BOLINGBROKE,]\nDUKE OF YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, Attendants, and forces]


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So that by this intelligence we learn\nThe Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury\nIs gone to meet the king, who lately landed\nWith some few private friends upon this coast.


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It would beseem the Lord Northumberland\nTo say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day\nWhen such a sacred king should hide his head.


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The time hath been,\nWould you have been so brief with him, he would\nHave been so brief with you, to shorten you,\nFor taking so the head, your whole head's length.


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I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself\nAgainst their will. But who comes here?\n[Enter HENRY PERCY]\nWelcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?


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Yes, my good lord,\nIt doth contain a king; King Richard lies\nWithin the limits of yon lime and stone:\nAnd with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\nSir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\nOf holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.


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Noble lords,\nGo to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\nThrough brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\nInto his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\nHenry Bolingbroke\nOn both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand\nAnd sends allegiance and true faith of heart\nTo his most royal person, hither come\nEven at his feet to lay my arms and power,\nProvided that my banishment repeal'd\nAnd lands restored again be freely granted:\nIf not, I'll use the advantage of my power\nAnd lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\nRain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:\nThe which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\nIt is, such crimson tempest should bedrench\nThe fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\nMy stooping duty tenderly shall show.\nGo, signify as much, while here we march\nUpon the grassy carpet of this plain.\nLet's march without the noise of threatening drum,\nThat from this castle's tatter'd battlements\nOur fair appointments may be well perused.\nMethinks King Richard and myself should meet\nWith no less terror than the elements\nOf fire and water, when their thundering shock\nAt meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\nBe he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:\nThe rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\nMy waters; on the earth, and not on him.\nMarch on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\n[Parle without, and answer within. Then a flourish.]\nEnter on the walls, KING RICHARD II, the BISHOP OF\nCARLISLE, DUKE OF AUMERLE, SIR STEPHEN SCROOP, and EARL OF SALISBURY]\nSee, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\nAs doth the blushing discontented sun\nFrom out the fiery portal of the east,\nWhen he perceives the envious clouds are bent\nTo dim his glory and to stain the track\nOf his bright passage to the occident.


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Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,\nAs bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\nControlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,\nThat any harm should stain so fair a show!


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We are amazed; and thus long have we stood\nTo watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\n[To NORTHUMBERLAND]\nBecause we thought ourself thy lawful king:\nAnd if we be, how dare thy joints forget\nTo pay their awful duty to our presence?\nIf we be not, show us the hand of God\nThat hath dismissed us from our stewardship;\nFor well we know, no hand of blood and bone\nCan gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\nUnless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\nAnd though you think that all, as you have done,\nHave torn their souls by turning them from us,\nAnd we are barren and bereft of friends;\nYet know, my master, God omnipotent,\nIs mustering in his clouds on our behalf\nArmies of pestilence; and they shall strike\nYour children yet unborn and unbegot,\nThat lift your vassal hands against my head\nAnd threat the glory of my precious crown.\nTell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--\nThat every stride he makes upon my land\nIs dangerous treason: he is come to open\nThe purple testament of bleeding war;\nBut ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\nTen thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\nShall ill become the flower of England's face,\nChange the complexion of her maid-pale peace\nTo scarlet indignation and bedew\nHer pastures' grass with faithful English blood.


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The king of heaven forbid our lord the king\nShould so with civil and uncivil arms\nBe rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin\nHarry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand;\nAnd by the honourable tomb he swears,\nThat stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\nAnd by the royalties of both your bloods,\nCurrents that spring from one most gracious head,\nAnd by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\nAnd by the worth and honour of himself,\nComprising all that may be sworn or said,\nHis coming hither hath no further scope\nThan for his lineal royalties and to beg\nEnfranchisement immediate on his knees:\nWhich on thy royal party granted once,\nHis glittering arms he will commend to rust,\nHis barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\nTo faithful service of your majesty.\nThis swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\nAnd, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.


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Northumberland, say thus the king returns:\nHis noble cousin is right welcome hither;\nAnd all the number of his fair demands\nShall be accomplish'd without contradiction:\nWith all the gracious utterance thou hast\nSpeak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\nWe do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\n[To DUKE OF AUMERLE]\nTo look so poorly and to speak so fair?\nShall we call back Northumberland, and send\nDefiance to the traitor, and so die?


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No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\nTill time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.


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O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,\nThat laid the sentence of dread banishment\nOn yon proud man, should take it off again\nWith words of sooth! O that I were as great\nAs is my grief, or lesser than my name!\nOr that I could forget what I have been,\nOr not remember what I must be now!\nSwell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\nSince foes have scope to beat both thee and me.


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What must the king do now? must he submit?\nThe king shall do it: must he be deposed?\nThe king shall be contented: must he lose\nThe name of king? o' God's name, let it go:\nI'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\nMy gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\nMy gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\nMy figured goblets for a dish of wood,\nMy sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\nMy subjects for a pair of carved saints\nAnd my large kingdom for a little grave,\nA little little grave, an obscure grave;\nOr I'll be buried in the king's highway,\nSome way of common trade, where subjects' feet\nMay hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\nFor on my heart they tread now whilst I live;\nAnd buried once, why not upon my head?\nAumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\nWe'll make foul weather with despised tears;\nOur sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,\nAnd make a dearth in this revolting land.\nOr shall we play the wantons with our woes,\nAnd make some pretty match with shedding tears?\nAs thus, to drop them still upon one place,\nTill they have fretted us a pair of graves\nWithin the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies\nTwo kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\nWould not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\nI talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\nMost mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\nWhat says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty\nGive Richard leave to live till Richard die?\nYou make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.


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Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,\nWanting the manage of unruly jades.\nIn the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\nTo come at traitors' calls and do them grace.\nIn the base court? Come down? Down, court!\ndown, king!\nFor night-owls shriek where mounting larks\nshould sing.


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Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee\nTo make the base earth proud with kissing it:\nMe rather had my heart might feel your love\nThan my unpleased eye see your courtesy.\nUp, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\nThus high at least, although your knee be low.


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Well you deserve: they well deserve to have,\nThat know the strong'st and surest way to get.\nUncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;\nTears show their love, but want their remedies.\nCousin, I am too young to be your father,\nThough you are old enough to be my heir.\nWhat you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\nFor do we must what force will have us do.\nSet on towards London, cousin, is it so?


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My legs can keep no measure in delight,\nWhen my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:\nTherefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.


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Of neither, girl:\nFor of joy, being altogether wanting,\nIt doth remember me the more of sorrow;\nOr if of grief, being altogether had,\nIt adds more sorrow to my want of joy:\nFor what I have I need not to repeat;\nAnd what I want it boots not to complain.


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And I could sing, would weeping do me good,\nAnd never borrow any tear of thee.\n[Enter a Gardener, and two Servants]\nBut stay, here come the gardeners:\nLet's step into the shadow of these trees.\nMy wretchedness unto a row of pins,\nThey'll talk of state; for every one doth so\nAgainst a change; woe is forerun with woe.


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Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\nWhich, like unruly children, make their sire\nStoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:\nGive some supportance to the bending twigs.\nGo thou, and like an executioner,\nCut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,\nThat look too lofty in our commonwealth:\nAll must be even in our government.\nYou thus employ'd, I will go root away\nThe noisome weeds, which without profit suck\nThe soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.


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Why should we in the compass of a pale\nKeep law and form and due proportion,\nShowing, as in a model, our firm estate,\nWhen our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\nIs full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,\nHer fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,\nHer knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbs\nSwarming with caterpillars?


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Hold thy peace:\nHe that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\nHath now himself met with the fall of leaf:\nThe weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\nThat seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\nAre pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke,\nI mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.


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They are; and Bolingbroke\nHath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it\nThat he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\nAs we this garden! We at time of year\nDo wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,\nLest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\nWith too much riches it confound itself:\nHad he done so to great and growing men,\nThey might have lived to bear and he to taste\nTheir fruits of duty: superfluous branches\nWe lop away, that bearing boughs may live:\nHad he done so, himself had borne the crown,\nWhich waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.


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Depress'd he is already, and deposed\n'Tis doubt he will be: letters came last night\nTo a dear friend of the good Duke of York's,\nThat tell black tidings.


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O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\n[Coming forward]\nThou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\nHow dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\nWhat Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee\nTo make a second fall of cursed man?\nWhy dost thou say King Richard is deposed?\nDarest thou, thou little better thing than earth,\nDivine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\nCamest thou by this ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.


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Pardon me, madam: little joy have I\nTo breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\nKing Richard, he is in the mighty hold\nOf Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:\nIn your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\nAnd some few vanities that make him light;\nBut in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\nBesides himself, are all the English peers,\nAnd with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\nPost you to London, and you will find it so;\nI speak no more than every one doth know.


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Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\nDoth not thy embassage belong to me,\nAnd am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st\nTo serve me last, that I may longest keep\nThy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,\nTo meet at London London's king in woe.\nWhat, was I born to this, that my sad look\nShould grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\nGardener, for telling me these news of woe,\nPray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.


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Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,\nI would my skill were subject to thy curse.\nHere did she fall a tear; here in this place\nI'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:\nRue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\nIn the remembrance of a weeping queen.


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[Exeunt]\n[Enter, as to the Parliament, HENRY BOLINGBROKE,]\nDUKE OF AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, LORD\nFITZWATER, DUKE OF SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\nthe Abbot Of Westminster, and another Lord, Herald,\nOfficers, and BAGOT]


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Call forth Bagot.\nNow, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;\nWhat thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,\nWho wrought it with the king, and who perform'd\nThe bloody office of his timeless end.


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My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\nScorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\nIn that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,\nI heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length,\nThat reacheth from the restful English court\nAs far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\nAmongst much other talk, that very time,\nI heard you say that you had rather refuse\nThe offer of an hundred thousand crowns\nThan Bolingbroke's return to England;\nAdding withal how blest this land would be\nIn this your cousin's death.


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Princes and noble lords,\nWhat answer shall I make to this base man?\nShall I so much dishonour my fair stars,\nOn equal terms to give him chastisement?\nEither I must, or have mine honour soil'd\nWith the attainder of his slanderous lips.\nThere is my gage, the manual seal of death,\nThat marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,\nAnd will maintain what thou hast said is false\nIn thy heart-blood, though being all too base\nTo stain the temper of my knightly sword.


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If that thy valour stand on sympathy,\nThere is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:\nBy that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\nI heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it\nThat thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\nIf thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;\nAnd I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\nWhere it was forged, with my rapier's point.


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Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\nIn this appeal as thou art all unjust;\nAnd that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\nTo prove it on thee to the extremest point\nOf mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.


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An if I do not, may my hands rot off\nAnd never brandish more revengeful steel\nOver the glittering helmet of my foe!


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I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\nAnd spur thee on with full as many lies\nAs may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear\nFrom sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.


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Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:\nI have a thousand spirits in one breast,\nTo answer twenty thousand such as you.


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Dishonourable boy!\nThat lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,\nThat it shall render vengeance and revenge\nTill thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie\nIn earth as quiet as thy father's skull:\nIn proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\nEngage it to the trial, if thou darest.


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How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\nIf I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\nI dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\nAnd spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,\nAnd lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,\nTo tie thee to my strong correction.\nAs I intend to thrive in this new world,\nAumerle is guilty of my true appeal:\nBesides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\nThat thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\nTo execute the noble duke at Calais.


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Some honest Christian trust me with a gage\nThat Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,\nIf he may be repeal'd, to try his honour.


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These differences shall all rest under gage\nTill Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,\nAnd, though mine enemy, restored again\nTo all his lands and signories: when he's return'd,\nAgainst Aumerle we will enforce his trial.


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That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.\nMany a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\nFor Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\nStreaming the ensign of the Christian cross\nAgainst black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:\nAnd toil'd with works of war, retired himself\nTo Italy; and there at Venice gave\nHis body to that pleasant country's earth,\nAnd his pure soul unto his captain Christ,\nUnder whose colours he had fought so long.


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Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\nOf good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\nYour differences shall all rest under gage\nTill we assign you to your days of trial.


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Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee\nFrom plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul\nAdopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\nTo the possession of thy royal hand:\nAscend his throne, descending now from him;\nAnd long live Henry, fourth of that name!


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Marry. God forbid!\nWorst in this royal presence may I speak,\nYet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\nWould God that any in this noble presence\nWere enough noble to be upright judge\nOf noble Richard! then true noblesse would\nLearn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\nWhat subject can give sentence on his king?\nAnd who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\nThieves are not judged but they are by to hear,\nAlthough apparent guilt be seen in them;\nAnd shall the figure of God's majesty,\nHis captain, steward, deputy-elect,\nAnointed, crowned, planted many years,\nBe judged by subject and inferior breath,\nAnd he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\nThat in a Christian climate souls refined\nShould show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\nI speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\nStirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king:\nMy Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\nIs a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:\nAnd if you crown him, let me prophesy:\nThe blood of English shall manure the ground,\nAnd future ages groan for this foul act;\nPeace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\nAnd in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\nShall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\nDisorder, horror, fear and mutiny\nShall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\nThe field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\nO, if you raise this house against this house,\nIt will the woefullest division prove\nThat ever fell upon this cursed earth.\nPrevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\nLest child, child's children, cry against you woe!


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Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\nOf capital treason we arrest you here.\nMy Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\nTo keep him safely till his day of trial.\nMay it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.


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Fetch hither Richard, that in common view\nHe may surrender; so we shall proceed\nWithout suspicion.


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Lords, you that here are under our arrest,\nProcure your sureties for your days of answer.\nLittle are we beholding to your love,\nAnd little look'd for at your helping hands.\n[Re-enter DUKE OF YORK, with KING RICHARD II, and]\nOfficers bearing the regalia]


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Alack, why am I sent for to a king,\nBefore I have shook off the regal thoughts\nWherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\nTo insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my limbs:\nGive sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\nTo this submission. Yet I well remember\nThe favours of these men: were they not mine?\nDid they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me?\nSo Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,\nFound truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none.\nGod save the king! Will no man say amen?\nAm I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.\nGod save the king! although I be not he;\nAnd yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\nTo do what service am I sent for hither?


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To do that office of thine own good will\nWhich tired majesty did make thee offer,\nThe resignation of thy state and crown\nTo Henry Bolingbroke.


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Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;\nHere cousin:\nOn this side my hand, and on that side yours.\nNow is this golden crown like a deep well\nThat owes two buckets, filling one another,\nThe emptier ever dancing in the air,\nThe other down, unseen and full of water:\nThat bucket down and full of tears am I,\nDrinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.


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My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:\nYou may my glories and my state depose,\nBut not my griefs; still am I king of those.


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Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\nMy care is loss of care, by old care done;\nYour care is gain of care, by new care won:\nThe cares I give I have, though given away;\nThey tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.


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Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\nTherefore no no, for I resign to thee.\nNow mark me, how I will undo myself;\nI give this heavy weight from off my head\nAnd this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\nThe pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\nWith mine own tears I wash away my balm,\nWith mine own hands I give away my crown,\nWith mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\nWith mine own breath release all duty's rites:\nAll pomp and majesty I do forswear;\nMy manors, rents, revenues I forego;\nMy acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:\nGod pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\nGod keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!\nMake me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,\nAnd thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!\nLong mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\nAnd soon lie Richard in an earthly pit!\nGod save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,\nAnd send him many years of sunshine days!\nWhat more remains?


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No more, but that you read\nThese accusations and these grievous crimes\nCommitted by your person and your followers\nAgainst the state and profit of this land;\nThat, by confessing them, the souls of men\nMay deem that you are worthily deposed.


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Must I do so? and must I ravel out\nMy weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland,\nIf thy offences were upon record,\nWould it not shame thee in so fair a troop\nTo read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\nThere shouldst thou find one heinous article,\nContaining the deposing of a king\nAnd cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\nMark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven:\nNay, all of you that stand and look upon,\nWhilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\nThough some of you with Pilate wash your hands\nShowing an outward pity; yet you Pilates\nHave here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\nAnd water cannot wash away your sin.


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Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:\nAnd yet salt water blinds them not so much\nBut they can see a sort of traitors here.\nNay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\nI find myself a traitor with the rest;\nFor I have given here my soul's consent\nTo undeck the pompous body of a king;\nMade glory base and sovereignty a slave,\nProud majesty a subject, state a peasant.


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No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\nNor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,\nNo, not that name was given me at the font,\nBut 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day,\nThat I have worn so many winters out,\nAnd know not now what name to call myself!\nO that I were a mockery king of snow,\nStanding before the sun of Bolingbroke,\nTo melt myself away in water-drops!\nGood king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\nAn if my word be sterling yet in England,\nLet it command a mirror hither straight,\nThat it may show me what a face I have,\nSince it is bankrupt of his majesty.


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They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,\nWhen I do see the very book indeed\nWhere all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\n[Re-enter Attendant, with a glass]\nGive me the glass, and therein will I read.\nNo deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck\nSo many blows upon this face of mine,\nAnd made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,\nLike to my followers in prosperity,\nThou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\nThat every day under his household roof\nDid keep ten thousand men? was this the face\nThat, like the sun, did make beholders wink?\nWas this the face that faced so many follies,\nAnd was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?\nA brittle glory shineth in this face:\nAs brittle as the glory is the face;\n[Dashes the glass against the ground]\nFor there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\nMark, silent king, the moral of this sport,\nHow soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.


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Say that again.\nThe shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:\n'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;\nAnd these external manners of laments\nAre merely shadows to the unseen grief\nThat swells with silence in the tortured soul;\nThere lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,\nFor thy great bounty, that not only givest\nMe cause to wail but teachest me the way\nHow to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\nAnd then be gone and trouble you no more.\nShall I obtain it?


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'Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king:\nFor when I was a king, my flatterers\nWere then but subjects; being now a subject,\nI have a king here to my flatterer.\nBeing so great, I have no need to beg.


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On Wednesday next we solemnly set down\nOur coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.\n[Exeunt all except the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the Abbot]\nof Westminster, and DUKE OF AUMERLE]


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My lord,\nBefore I freely speak my mind herein,\nYou shall not only take the sacrament\nTo bury mine intents, but also to effect\nWhatever I shall happen to devise.\nI see your brows are full of discontent,\nYour hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears:\nCome home with me to supper; and I'll lay\nA plot shall show us all a merry day.


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This way the king will come; this is the way\nTo Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\nTo whose flint bosom my condemned lord\nIs doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:\nHere let us rest, if this rebellious earth\nHave any resting for her true king's queen.\n[Enter KING RICHARD II and Guard]\nBut soft, but see, or rather do not see,\nMy fair rose wither: yet look up, behold,\nThat you in pity may dissolve to dew,\nAnd wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\nAh, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,\nThou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\nAnd not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\nWhy should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee,\nWhen triumph is become an alehouse guest?


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Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\nTo make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,\nTo think our former state a happy dream;\nFrom which awaked, the truth of what we are\nShows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\nTo grim Necessity, and he and I\nWill keep a league till death. Hie thee to France\nAnd cloister thee in some religious house:\nOur holy lives must win a new world's crown,\nWhich our profane hours here have stricken down.


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What, is my Richard both in shape and mind\nTransform'd and weaken'd? hath Bolingbroke deposed\nThine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?\nThe lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,\nAnd wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\nTo be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\nTake thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,\nAnd fawn on rage with base humility,\nWhich art a lion and a king of beasts?


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A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,\nI had been still a happy king of men.\nGood sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:\nThink I am dead and that even here thou takest,\nAs from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\nIn winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\nWith good old folks and let them tell thee tales\nOf woeful ages long ago betid;\nAnd ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs,\nTell thou the lamentable tale of me\nAnd send the hearers weeping to their beds:\nFor why, the senseless brands will sympathize\nThe heavy accent of thy moving tongue\nAnd in compassion weep the fire out;\nAnd some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\nFor the deposing of a rightful king.


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My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed:\nYou must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\nAnd, madam, there is order ta'en for you;\nWith all swift speed you must away to France.


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Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\nThe mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\nThe time shall not be many hours of age\nMore than it is ere foul sin gathering head\nShalt break into corruption: thou shalt think,\nThough he divide the realm and give thee half,\nIt is too little, helping him to all;\nAnd he shall think that thou, which know'st the way\nTo plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\nBeing ne'er so little urged, another way\nTo pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\nThe love of wicked men converts to fear;\nThat fear to hate, and hate turns one or both\nTo worthy danger and deserved death.


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Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate\nA twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me,\nAnd then betwixt me and my married wife.\nLet me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\nAnd yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\nPart us, Northumberland; I toward the north,\nWhere shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\nMy wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp,\nShe came adorned hither like sweet May,\nSent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.


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So two, together weeping, make one woe.\nWeep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\nBetter far off than near, be ne'er the near.\nGo, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.


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Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\nAnd piece the way out with a heavy heart.\nCome, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\nSince, wedding it, there is such length in grief;\nOne kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\nThus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.


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Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part\nTo take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\nSo, now I have mine own again, be gone,\nThat I might strive to kill it with a groan.


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My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\nWhen weeping made you break the story off,\nof our two cousins coming into London.


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At that sad stop, my lord,\nWhere rude misgovern'd hands from windows' tops\nThrew dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.


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Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,\nMounted upon a hot and fiery steed\nWhich his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\nWith slow but stately pace kept on his course,\nWhilst all tongues cried 'God save thee,\nBolingbroke!'\nYou would have thought the very windows spake,\nSo many greedy looks of young and old\nThrough casements darted their desiring eyes\nUpon his visage, and that all the walls\nWith painted imagery had said at once\n'Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!'\nWhilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\nBareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\nBespake them thus: 'I thank you, countrymen:'\nAnd thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.


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As in a theatre, the eyes of men,\nAfter a well-graced actor leaves the stage,\nAre idly bent on him that enters next,\nThinking his prattle to be tedious;\nEven so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\nDid scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\nNo joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:\nBut dust was thrown upon his sacred head:\nWhich with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\nHis face still combating with tears and smiles,\nThe badges of his grief and patience,\nThat had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\nThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted\nAnd barbarism itself have pitied him.\nBut heaven hath a hand in these events,\nTo whose high will we bound our calm contents.\nTo Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\nWhose state and honour I for aye allow.


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Aumerle that was;\nBut that is lost for being Richard's friend,\nAnd, madam, you must call him Rutland now:\nI am in parliament pledge for his truth\nAnd lasting fealty to the new-made king.


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Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,\nLest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\nWhat news from Oxford? hold those justs and triumphs?


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I do beseech your grace to pardon me:\nIt is a matter of small consequence,\nWhich for some reasons I would not have seen.


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What should you fear?\n'Tis nothing but some bond, that he is enter'd into\nFor gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day.


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Bound to himself! what doth he with a bond\nThat he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\nBoy, let me see the writing.


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I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\n[He plucks it out of his bosom and reads it]\nTreason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!


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Ho! who is within there?\n[Enter a Servant]\nSaddle my horse.\nGod for his mercy, what treachery is here!


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Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\nNow, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,\nI will appeach the villain.


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Why, York, what wilt thou do?\nWilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\nHave we more sons? or are we like to have?\nIs not my teeming date drunk up with time?\nAnd wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,\nAnd rob me of a happy mother's name?\nIs he not like thee? is he not thine own?


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Thou fond mad woman,\nWilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\nA dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\nAnd interchangeably set down their hands,\nTo kill the king at Oxford.


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Hadst thou groan'd for him\nAs I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\nBut now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect\nThat I have been disloyal to thy bed,\nAnd that he is a bastard, not thy son:\nSweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:\nHe is as like thee as a man may be,\nNot like to me, or any of my kin,\nAnd yet I love him.


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After, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse;\nSpur post, and get before him to the king,\nAnd beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\nI'll not be long behind; though I be old,\nI doubt not but to ride as fast as York:\nAnd never will I rise up from the ground\nTill Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone!


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Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n'Tis full three months since I did see him last;\nIf any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\nI would to God, my lords, he might be found:\nInquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\nFor there, they say, he daily doth frequent,\nWith unrestrained loose companions,\nEven such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,\nAnd beat our watch, and rob our passengers;\nWhich he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\nTakes on the point of honour to support\nSo dissolute a crew.


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His answer was, he would unto the stews,\nAnd from the common'st creature pluck a glove,\nAnd wear it as a favour; and with that\nHe would unhorse the lustiest challenger.


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As dissolute as desperate; yet through both\nI see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\nMay happily bring forth. But who comes here?


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Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\n[Exeunt HENRY PERCY and Lords]\nWhat is the matter with our cousin now?


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For ever may my knees grow to the earth,\nMy tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth\nUnless a pardon ere I rise or speak.


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Intended or committed was this fault?\nIf on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\nTo win thy after-love I pardon thee.


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[Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy king:\nShall I for love speak treason to thy face?\nOpen the door, or I will break it open.


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What is the matter, uncle? speak;\nRecover breath; tell us how near is danger,\nThat we may arm us to encounter it.


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Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd:\nI do repent me; read not my name there\nMy heart is not confederate with my hand.


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It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\nI tore it from the traitor's bosom, king;\nFear, and not love, begets his penitence:\nForget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\nA serpent that will sting thee to the heart.


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O heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!\nO loyal father of a treacherous son!\nThou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,\nFrom when this stream through muddy passages\nHath held his current and defiled himself!\nThy overflow of good converts to bad,\nAnd thy abundant goodness shall excuse\nThis deadly blot in thy digressing son.


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So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\nAnd he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\nAs thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\nMine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\nOr my shamed life in his dishonour lies:\nThou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\nThe traitor lives, the true man's put to death.


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A woman, and thy aunt, great king; 'tis I.\nSpeak with me, pity me, open the door.\nA beggar begs that never begg'd before.


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Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing,\nAnd now changed to 'The Beggar and the King.'\nMy dangerous cousin, let your mother in:\nI know she is come to pray for your foul sin.


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If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,\nMore sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\nThis fester'd joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\nThis let alone will all the rest confound.


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Not yet, I thee beseech:\nFor ever will I walk upon my knees,\nAnd never see day that the happy sees,\nTill thou give joy; until thou bid me joy,\nBy pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.


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Pleads he in earnest? look upon his face;\nHis eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\nHis words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:\nHe prays but faintly and would be denied;\nWe pray with heart and soul and all beside:\nHis weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\nOur knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:\nHis prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\nOurs of true zeal and deep integrity.\nOur prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\nThat mercy which true prayer ought to have.


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Nay, do not say, 'stand up;'\nSay, 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\nAnd if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\nI never long'd to hear a word till now;\nSay 'pardon,' king; let pity teach thee how:\nThe word is short, but not so short as sweet;\nNo word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.


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Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\nAh, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\nThat set'st the word itself against the word!\nSpeak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\nThe chopping French we do not understand.\nThine eye begins to speak; set thy tongue there;\nOr in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;\nThat hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\nPity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.


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O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\nYet am I sick for fear: speak it again;\nTwice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\nBut makes one pardon strong.


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But for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,\nWith all the rest of that consorted crew,\nDestruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\nGood uncle, help to order several powers\nTo Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:\nThey shall not live within this world, I swear,\nBut I will have them, if I once know where.\nUncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:\nYour mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.


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Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake,\n'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\nWas it not so?


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And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,\nAnd who should say, 'I would thou wert the man'\nThat would divorce this terror from my heart;'\nMeaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go:\nI am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.


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I have been studying how I may compare\nThis prison where I live unto the world:\nAnd for because the world is populous\nAnd here is not a creature but myself,\nI cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.\nMy brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\nMy soul the father; and these two beget\nA generation of still-breeding thoughts,\nAnd these same thoughts people this little world,\nIn humours like the people of this world,\nFor no thought is contented. The better sort,\nAs thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\nWith scruples and do set the word itself\nAgainst the word:\nAs thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,\n'It is as hard to come as for a camel\nTo thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\nThoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\nUnlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails\nMay tear a passage through the flinty ribs\nOf this hard world, my ragged prison walls,\nAnd, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\nThoughts tending to content flatter themselves\nThat they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\nNor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\nWho sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,\nThat many have and others must sit there;\nAnd in this thought they find a kind of ease,\nBearing their own misfortunes on the back\nOf such as have before endured the like.\nThus play I in one person many people,\nAnd none contented: sometimes am I king;\nThen treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\nAnd so I am: then crushing penury\nPersuades me I was better when a king;\nThen am I king'd again: and by and by\nThink that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\nAnd straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,\nNor I nor any man that but man is\nWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased\nWith being nothing. Music do I hear?\n[Music]\nHa, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,\nWhen time is broke and no proportion kept!\nSo is it in the music of men's lives.\nAnd here have I the daintiness of ear\nTo cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;\nBut for the concord of my state and time\nHad not an ear to hear my true time broke.\nI wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\nFor now hath time made me his numbering clock:\nMy thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\nTheir watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\nWhereto my finger, like a dial's point,\nIs pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\nNow sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\nAre clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,\nWhich is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans\nShow minutes, times, and hours: but my time\nRuns posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\nWhile I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.\nThis music mads me; let it sound no more;\nFor though it have holp madmen to their wits,\nIn me it seems it will make wise men mad.\nYet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\nFor 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\nIs a strange brooch in this all-hating world.


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Thanks, noble peer;\nThe cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\nWhat art thou? and how comest thou hither,\nWhere no man never comes but that sad dog\nThat brings me food to make misfortune live?


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I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,\nWhen thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\nWith much ado at length have gotten leave\nTo look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\nO, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld\nIn London streets, that coronation-day,\nWhen Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,\nThat horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\nThat horse that I so carefully have dress'd!


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So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\nThat jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\nThis hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\nWould he not stumble? would he not fall down,\nSince pride must have a fall, and break the neck\nOf that proud man that did usurp his back?\nForgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,\nSince thou, created to be awed by man,\nWast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\nAnd yet I bear a burthen like an ass,\nSpurr'd, gall'd and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.


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How now! what means death in this rude assault?\nVillain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\n[Snatching an axe from a Servant and killing him]\nGo thou, and fill another room in hell.\n[He kills another. Then Exton strikes him down]\nThat hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\nThat staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\nHath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.\nMount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\nWhilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.


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As full of valour as of royal blood:\nBoth have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!\nFor now the devil, that told me I did well,\nSays that this deed is chronicled in hell.\nThis dead king to the living king I'll bear\nTake hence the rest, and give them burial here.


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Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear\nIs that the rebels have consumed with fire\nOur town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;\nBut whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\n[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]\nWelcome, my lord. what is the news?


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First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\nThe next news is, I have to London sent\nThe heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent:\nThe manner of their taking may appear\nAt large discoursed in this paper here.


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My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\nThe heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,\nTwo of the dangerous consorted traitors\nThat sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.


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The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\nWith clog of conscience and sour melancholy\nHath yielded up his body to the grave;\nBut here is Carlisle living, to abide\nThy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.


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Carlisle, this is your doom:\nChoose out some secret place, some reverend room,\nMore than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\nSo as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:\nFor though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\nHigh sparks of honour in thee have I seen.


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Great king, within this coffin I present\nThy buried fear: herein all breathless lies\nThe mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\nRichard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.


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Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\nA deed of slander with thy fatal hand\nUpon my head and all this famous land.


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They love not poison that do poison need,\nNor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,\nI hate the murderer, love him murdered.\nThe guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\nBut neither my good word nor princely favour:\nWith Cain go wander through shades of night,\nAnd never show thy head by day nor light.\nLords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,\nThat blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:\nCome, mourn with me for that I do lament,\nAnd put on sullen black incontinent:\nI'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\nTo wash this blood off from my guilty hand:\nMarch sadly after; grace my mournings here;\nIn weeping after this untimely bier.


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Now is the winter of our discontent\nMade glorious summer by this sun of York;\nAnd all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\nIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\nNow are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\nOur bruised arms hung up for monuments;\nOur stern alarums changed to merry meetings,\nOur dreadful marches to delightful measures.\nGrim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;\nAnd now, instead of mounting barded steeds\nTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\nHe capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\nTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\nBut I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,\nNor made to court an amorous looking-glass;\nI, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\nTo strut before a wanton ambling nymph;\nI, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\nCheated of feature by dissembling nature,\nDeformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time\nInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,\nAnd that so lamely and unfashionable\nThat dogs bark at me as I halt by them;\nWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\nHave no delight to pass away the time,\nUnless to spy my shadow in the sun\nAnd descant on mine own deformity:\nAnd therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,\nTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,\nI am determined to prove a villain\nAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.\nPlots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\nBy drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,\nTo set my brother Clarence and the king\nIn deadly hate the one against the other:\nAnd if King Edward be as true and just\nAs I am subtle, false and treacherous,\nThis day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,\nAbout a prophecy, which says that 'G'\nOf Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\nDive, thoughts, down to my soul: here\nClarence comes.\n[Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY]\nBrother, good day; what means this armed guard\nThat waits upon your grace?


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Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;\nHe should, for that, commit your godfathers:\nO, belike his majesty hath some intent\nThat you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.\nBut what's the matter, Clarence? may I know?


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


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Why, this it is, when men are ruled by women:\n'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower:\nMy Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\nThat tempers him to this extremity.\nWas it not she and that good man of worship,\nAnthony Woodville, her brother there,\nThat made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\nFrom whence this present day he is deliver'd?\nWe are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.


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By heaven, I think there's no man is secure\nBut the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds\nThat trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.\nHeard ye not what an humble suppliant\nLord hastings was to her for his delivery?


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Humbly complaining to her deity\nGot my lord chamberlain his liberty.\nI'll tell you what; I think it is our way,\nIf we will keep in favour with the king,\nTo be her men and wear her livery:\nThe jealous o'erworn widow and herself,\nSince that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen.\nAre mighty gossips in this monarchy.


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I beseech your graces both to pardon me;\nHis majesty hath straitly given in charge\nThat no man shall have private conference,\nOf what degree soever, with his brother.


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Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\nYou may partake of any thing we say:\nWe speak no treason, man: we say the king\nIs wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\nWell struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\nWe say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\nA cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\nAnd that the queen's kindred are made gentle-folks:\nHow say you sir? Can you deny all this?


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


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We are the queen's abjects, and must obey.\nBrother, farewell: I will unto the king;\nAnd whatsoever you will employ me in,\nWere it to call King Edward's widow sister,\nI will perform it to enfranchise you.\nMeantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\nTouches me deeper than you can imagine.


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Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\nSimple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,\nThat I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\nIf heaven will take the present at our hands.\nBut who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings?


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As much unto my good lord chamberlain!\nWell are you welcome to the open air.\nHow hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?


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With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:\nBut I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\nThat were the cause of my imprisonment.


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No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\nFor they that were your enemies are his,\nAnd have prevail'd as much on him as you.


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No news so bad abroad as this at home;\nThe King is sickly, weak and melancholy,\nAnd his physicians fear him mightily.


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Now, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.\nO, he hath kept an evil diet long,\nAnd overmuch consumed his royal person:\n'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\nWhat, is he in his bed?


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Go you before, and I will follow you.\n[Exit HASTINGS]\nHe cannot live, I hope; and must not die\nTill George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.\nI'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,\nWith lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\nAnd, if I fall not in my deep intent,\nClarence hath not another day to live:\nWhich done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\nAnd leave the world for me to bustle in!\nFor then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\nWhat though I kill'd her husband and her father?\nThe readiest way to make the wench amends\nIs to become her husband and her father:\nThe which will I; not all so much for love\nAs for another secret close intent,\nBy marrying her which I must reach unto.\nBut yet I run before my horse to market:\nClarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:\nWhen they are gone, then must I count my gains.


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[Exit]\n[Enter the corpse of KING HENRY the Sixth, Gentlemen]\nwith halberds to guard it; LADY ANNE being the mourner]


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Set down, set down your honourable load,\nIf honour may be shrouded in a hearse,\nWhilst I awhile obsequiously lament\nThe untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\nPoor key-cold figure of a holy king!\nPale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\nThou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\nBe it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,\nTo hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,\nWife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,\nStabb'd by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!\nLo, in these windows that let forth thy life,\nI pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\nCursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!\nCursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!\nCursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\nMore direful hap betide that hated wretch,\nThat makes us wretched by the death of thee,\nThan I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\nOr any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\nIf ever he have child, abortive be it,\nProdigious, and untimely brought to light,\nWhose ugly and unnatural aspect\nMay fright the hopeful mother at the view;\nAnd that be heir to his unhappiness!\nIf ever he have wife, let her he made\nA miserable by the death of him\nAs I am made by my poor lord and thee!\nCome, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\nTaken from Paul's to be interred there;\nAnd still, as you are weary of the weight,\nRest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.


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Unmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:\nAdvance thy halbert higher than my breast,\nOr, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,\nAnd spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.


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What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?\nAlas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,\nAnd mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\nAvaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\nThou hadst but power over his mortal body,\nHis soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.


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Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;\nFor thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,\nFill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\nIf thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\nBehold this pattern of thy butcheries.\nO, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\nOpen their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!\nBlush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\nFor 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\nFrom cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\nThy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\nProvokes this deluge most unnatural.\nO God, which this blood madest, revenge his death!\nO earth, which this blood drink'st revenge his death!\nEither heaven with lightning strike the\nmurderer dead,\nOr earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\nAs thou dost swallow up this good king's blood\nWhich his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!


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More wonderful, when angels are so angry.\nVouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\nOf these supposed-evils, to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, but to acquit myself.


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Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,\nFor these known evils, but to give me leave,\nBy circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.


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And, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused;\nFor doing worthy vengeance on thyself,\nWhich didst unworthy slaughter upon others.


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


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Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.\nWhich never dreamt on aught but butcheries:\nDidst thou not kill this king?


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Dost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too\nThou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\nO, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!


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I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\nTo leave this keen encounter of our wits,\nAnd fall somewhat into a slower method,\nIs not the causer of the timeless deaths\nOf these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\nAs blameful as the executioner?


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Your beauty was the cause of that effect;\nYour beauty: which did haunt me in my sleep\nTo undertake the death of all the world,\nSo I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.


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These eyes could never endure sweet beauty's wreck;\nYou should not blemish it, if I stood by:\nAs all the world is cheered by the sun,\nSo I by that; it is my day, my life.


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I would they were, that I might die at once;\nFor now they kill me with a living death.\nThose eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\nShamed their aspect with store of childish drops:\nThese eyes that never shed remorseful tear,\nNo, when my father York and Edward wept,\nTo hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\nWhen black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;\nNor when thy warlike father, like a child,\nTold the sad story of my father's death,\nAnd twenty times made pause to sob and weep,\nThat all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\nLike trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time\nMy manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\nAnd what these sorrows could not thence exhale,\nThy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\nI never sued to friend nor enemy;\nMy tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\nBut now thy beauty is proposed my fee,\nMy proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n[She looks scornfully at him]\nTeach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made\nFor kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\nIf thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\nLo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\nWhich if thou please to hide in this true bosom.\nAnd let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\nI lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\nAnd humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n[He lays his breast open: she offers at it with his sword]\nNay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,\nBut 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\nNay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,\nBut 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n[Here she lets fall the sword]\nTake up the sword again, or take up me.


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Tush, that was in thy rage:\nSpeak it again, and, even with the word,\nThat hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,\nShall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;\nTo both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.


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Look, how this ring encompasseth finger.\nEven so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\nWear both of them, for both of them are thine.\nAnd if thy poor devoted suppliant may\nBut beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\nThou dost confirm his happiness for ever.


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That it would please thee leave these sad designs\nTo him that hath more cause to be a mourner,\nAnd presently repair to Crosby Place;\nWhere, after I have solemnly interr'd\nAt Chertsey monastery this noble king,\nAnd wet his grave with my repentant tears,\nI will with all expedient duty see you:\nFor divers unknown reasons. I beseech you,\nGrant me this boon.


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With all my heart; and much it joys me too,\nTo see you are become so penitent.\nTressel and Berkeley, go along with me.


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'Tis more than you deserve;\nBut since you teach me how to flatter you,\nImagine I have said farewell already.


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No, to White-Friars; there attend my coining.\n[Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER]\nWas ever woman in this humour woo'd?\nWas ever woman in this humour won?\nI'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\nWhat! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,\nTo take her in her heart's extremest hate,\nWith curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\nThe bleeding witness of her hatred by;\nHaving God, her conscience, and these bars\nagainst me,\nAnd I nothing to back my suit at all,\nBut the plain devil and dissembling looks,\nAnd yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\nHa!\nHath she forgot already that brave prince,\nEdward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\nStabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\nA sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,\nFramed in the prodigality of nature,\nYoung, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,\nThe spacious world cannot again afford\nAnd will she yet debase her eyes on me,\nThat cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,\nAnd made her widow to a woful bed?\nOn me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\nOn me, that halt and am unshapen thus?\nMy dukedom to a beggarly denier,\nI do mistake my person all this while:\nUpon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\nMyself to be a marvellous proper man.\nI'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\nAnd entertain some score or two of tailors,\nTo study fashions to adorn my body:\nSince I am crept in favour with myself,\nWill maintain it with some little cost.\nBut first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;\nAnd then return lamenting to my love.\nShine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\nThat I may see my shadow as I pass.


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In that you brook it in, it makes him worse:\nTherefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\nAnd cheer his grace with quick and merry words.


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


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The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby.\nTo your good prayers will scarcely say amen.\nYet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife,\nAnd loves not me, be you, good lord, assured\nI hate not you for her proud arrogance.


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I do beseech you, either not believe\nThe envious slanders of her false accusers;\nOr, if she be accused in true report,\nBear with her weakness, which, I think proceeds\nFrom wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.


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


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They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:\nWho are they that complain unto the king,\nThat I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?\nBy holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly\nThat fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\nBecause I cannot flatter and speak fair,\nSmile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,\nDuck with French nods and apish courtesy,\nI must be held a rancorous enemy.\nCannot a plain man live and think no harm,\nBut thus his simple truth must be abused\nBy silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?


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To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\nWhen have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?\nOr thee? or thee? or any of your faction?\nA plague upon you all! His royal person,--\nWhom God preserve better than you would wish!--\nCannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,\nBut you must trouble him with lewd complaints.


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Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.\nThe king, of his own royal disposition,\nAnd not provoked by any suitor else;\nAiming, belike, at your interior hatred,\nWhich in your outward actions shows itself\nAgainst my kindred, brothers, and myself,\nMakes him to send; that thereby he may gather\nThe ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.


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I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,\nThat wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:\nSince every Jack became a gentleman\nThere's many a gentle person made a Jack.


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Come, come, we know your meaning, brother\nGloucester;\nYou envy my advancement and my friends':\nGod grant we never may have need of you!


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Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:\nYour brother is imprison'd by your means,\nMyself disgraced, and the nobility\nHeld in contempt; whilst many fair promotions\nAre daily given to ennoble those\nThat scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.


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By Him that raised me to this careful height\nFrom that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\nI never did incense his majesty\nAgainst the Duke of Clarence, but have been\nAn earnest advocate to plead for him.\nMy lord, you do me shameful injury,\nFalsely to draw me in these vile suspects.


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


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What, marry, may she! marry with a king,\nA bachelor, a handsome stripling too:\nI wis your grandam had a worser match.


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My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne\nYour blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:\nBy heaven, I will acquaint his majesty\nWith those gross taunts I often have endured.\nI had rather be a country servant-maid\nThan a great queen, with this condition,\nTo be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:\n[Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind]\nSmall joy have I in being England's queen.


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


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Out, devil! I remember them too well:\nThou slewest my husband Henry in the Tower,\nAnd Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.


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


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In all which time you and your husband Grey\nWere factious for the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\nIn Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?\nLet me put in your minds, if you forget,\nWhat you have been ere now, and what you are;\nWithal, what I have been, and what I am.


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To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\nAnd for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.\nI would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's;\nOr Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine\nI am too childish-foolish for this world.


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My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\nWhich here you urge to prove us enemies,\nWe follow'd then our lord, our lawful king:\nSo should we you, if you should be our king.


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As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\nYou should enjoy, were you this country's king,\nAs little joy may you suppose in me.\nThat I enjoy, being the queen thereof.


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A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;\nFor I am she, and altogether joyless.\nI can no longer hold me patient.\n[Advancing]\nHear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\nIn sharing that which you have pill'd from me!\nWhich of you trembles not that looks on me?\nIf not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,\nYet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?\nO gentle villain, do not turn away!


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I was; but I do find more pain in banishment\nThan death can yield me here by my abode.\nA husband and a son thou owest to me;\nAnd thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance:\nThe sorrow that I have, by right is yours,\nAnd all the pleasures you usurp are mine.


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The curse my noble father laid on thee,\nWhen thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\nAnd with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\nAnd then, to dry them, gavest the duke a clout\nSteep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland--\nHis curses, then from bitterness of soul\nDenounced against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;\nAnd God, not we, hath plagued thy bloody deed.


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What were you snarling all before I came,\nReady to catch each other by the throat,\nAnd turn you all your hatred now on me?\nDid York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven?\nThat Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\nTheir kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,\nCould all but answer for that peevish brat?\nCan curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\nWhy, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\nIf not by war, by surfeit die your king,\nAs ours by murder, to make him a king!\nEdward thy son, which now is Prince of Wales,\nFor Edward my son, which was Prince of Wales,\nDie in his youth by like untimely violence!\nThyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\nOutlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\nLong mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss;\nAnd see another, as I see thee now,\nDeck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\nLong die thy happy days before thy death;\nAnd, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,\nDie neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!\nRivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\nAnd so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\nWas stabb'd with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,\nThat none of you may live your natural age,\nBut by some unlook'd accident cut off!


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And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.\nIf heaven have any grievous plague in store\nExceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\nO, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\nAnd then hurl down their indignation\nOn thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\nThe worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!\nThy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest,\nAnd take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\nNo sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\nUnless it be whilst some tormenting dream\nAffrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\nThou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\nThou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\nThe slave of nature and the son of hell!\nThou slander of thy mother's heavy womb!\nThou loathed issue of thy father's loins!\nThou rag of honour! thou detested--


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Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\nWhy strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\nWhose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\nFool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\nThe time will come when thou shalt wish for me\nTo help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.


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To serve me well, you all should do me duty,\nTeach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:\nO, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!


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Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:\nYour fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\nO, that your young nobility could judge\nWhat 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!\nThey that stand high have many blasts to shake them;\nAnd if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.


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Yea, and much more: but I was born so high,\nOur aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\nAnd dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.


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And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!\nWitness my son, now in the shade of death;\nWhose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\nHath in eternal darkness folded up.\nYour aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\nO God, that seest it, do not suffer it!\nAs it was won with blood, lost be it so!


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Urge neither charity nor shame to me:\nUncharitably with me have you dealt,\nAnd shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.\nMy charity is outrage, life my shame\nAnd in that shame still live my sorrow's rage.


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O princely Buckingham I'll kiss thy hand,\nIn sign of league and amity with thee:\nNow fair befal thee and thy noble house!\nThy garments are not spotted with our blood,\nNor thou within the compass of my curse.


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I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,\nAnd there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\nO Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\nLook, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\nHis venom tooth will rankle to the death:\nHave not to do with him, beware of him;\nSin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,\nAnd all their ministers attend on him.


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What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?\nAnd soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\nO, but remember this another day,\nWhen he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\nAnd say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\nLive each of you the subjects to his hate,\nAnd he to yours, and all of you to God's!


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I cannot blame her: by God's holy mother,\nShe hath had too much wrong; and I repent\nMy part thereof that I have done to her.


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But you have all the vantage of her wrong.\nI was too hot to do somebody good,\nThat is too cold in thinking of it now.\nMarry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid,\nHe is frank'd up to fatting for his pains\nGod pardon them that are the cause of it!


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I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\nThe secret mischiefs that I set abroach\nI lay unto the grievous charge of others.\nClarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,\nI do beweep to many simple gulls\nNamely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;\nAnd say it is the queen and her allies\nThat stir the king against the duke my brother.\nNow, they believe it; and withal whet me\nTo be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:\nBut then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,\nTell them that God bids us do good for evil:\nAnd thus I clothe my naked villany\nWith old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;\nAnd seem a saint, when most I play the devil.\n[Enter two Murderers]\nBut, soft! here come my executioners.\nHow now, my hardy, stout resolved mates!\nAre you now going to dispatch this deed?


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Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n[Gives the warrant]\nWhen you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\nBut, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\nWithal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\nFor Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\nMay move your hearts to pity if you mark him.


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Tush!\nFear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate;\nTalkers are no good doers: be assured\nWe come to use our hands and not our tongues.


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Your eyes drop millstones, when fools' eyes drop tears:\nI like you, lads; about your business straight;\nGo, go, dispatch.


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O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\nSo full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,\nThat, as I am a Christian faithful man,\nI would not spend another such a night,\nThough 'twere to buy a world of happy days,\nSo full of dismal terror was the time!


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Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,\nAnd was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\nAnd, in my company, my brother Gloucester;\nWho from my cabin tempted me to walk\nUpon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,\nAnd cited up a thousand fearful times,\nDuring the wars of York and Lancaster\nThat had befall'n us. As we paced along\nUpon the giddy footing of the hatches,\nMethought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,\nStruck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,\nInto the tumbling billows of the main.\nLord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!\nWhat dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!\nWhat ugly sights of death within mine eyes!\nMethought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;\nTen thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;\nWedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\nInestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\nAll scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:\nSome lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes\nWhere eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,\nAs 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\nWhich woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,\nAnd mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.


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Methought I had; and often did I strive\nTo yield the ghost: but still the envious flood\nKept in my soul, and would not let it forth\nTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;\nBut smother'd it within my panting bulk,\nWhich almost burst to belch it in the sea.


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O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;\nO, then began the tempest to my soul,\nWho pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,\nWith that grim ferryman which poets write of,\nUnto the kingdom of perpetual night.\nThe first that there did greet my stranger soul,\nWas my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;\nWho cried aloud, 'What scourge for perjury\nCan this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\nAnd so he vanish'd: then came wandering by\nA shadow like an angel, with bright hair\nDabbled in blood; and he squeak'd out aloud,\n'Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,\nThat stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;\nSeize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!'\nWith that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\nEnviron'd me about, and howled in mine ears\nSuch hideous cries, that with the very noise\nI trembling waked, and for a season after\nCould not believe but that I was in hell,\nSuch terrible impression made the dream.


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O Brakenbury, I have done those things,\nWhich now bear evidence against my soul,\nFor Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!\nO God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,\nBut thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,\nYet execute thy wrath in me alone,\nO, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\nI pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;\nMy soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.


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I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!\n[CLARENCE sleeps]\nSorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\nMakes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.\nPrinces have but their tides for their glories,\nAn outward honour for an inward toil;\nAnd, for unfelt imagination,\nThey often feel a world of restless cares:\nSo that, betwixt their tides and low names,\nThere's nothing differs but the outward fame.


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I am, in this, commanded to deliver\nThe noble Duke of Clarence to your hands:\nI will not reason what is meant hereby,\nBecause I will be guiltless of the meaning.\nHere are the keys, there sits the duke asleep:\nI'll to the king; and signify to him\nThat thus I have resign'd my charge to you.


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Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be\ndamned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.


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I pray thee, stay a while: I hope my holy humour\nwill change; 'twas wont to hold me but while one\nwould tell twenty.


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I'll not meddle with it: it is a dangerous thing: it\nmakes a man a coward: a man cannot steal, but it\naccuseth him; he cannot swear, but it cheques him;\nhe cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it\ndetects him: 'tis a blushing shamefast spirit that\nmutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of\nobstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\nthat I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it\nis turned out of all towns and cities for a\ndangerous thing; and every man that means to live\nwell endeavours to trust to himself and to live\nwithout it.


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Take the devil in thy mind, and relieve him not: he\nwould insinuate with thee but to make thee sigh.


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Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy\nsword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt\nin the next room.


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How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\nYour eyes do menace me: why look you pale?\nWho sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?


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You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\nAnd therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\nWherein, my friends, have I offended you?


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Are you call'd forth from out a world of men\nTo slay the innocent? What is my offence?\nWhere are the evidence that do accuse me?\nWhat lawful quest have given their verdict up\nUnto the frowning judge? or who pronounced\nThe bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\nBefore I be convict by course of law,\nTo threaten me with death is most unlawful.\nI charge you, as you hope to have redemption\nBy Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\nThat you depart and lay no hands on me\nThe deed you undertake is damnable.


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Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings\nHath in the tables of his law commanded\nThat thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,\nSpurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\nTake heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands,\nTo hurl upon their heads that break his law.


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And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,\nFor false forswearing and for murder too:\nThou didst receive the holy sacrament,\nTo fight in quarrel of the house of Lancaster.


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And, like a traitor to the name of God,\nDidst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\nUnrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.


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Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\nFor Edward, for my brother, for his sake: Why, sirs,\nHe sends ye not to murder me for this\nFor in this sin he is as deep as I.\nIf God will be revenged for this deed.\nO, know you yet, he doth it publicly,\nTake not the quarrel from his powerful arm;\nHe needs no indirect nor lawless course\nTo cut off those that have offended him.


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Who made thee, then, a bloody minister,\nWhen gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\nThat princely novice, was struck dead by thee?


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Oh, if you love my brother, hate not me;\nI am his brother, and I love him well.\nIf you be hired for meed, go back again,\nAnd I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\nWho shall reward you better for my life\nThan Edward will for tidings of my death.


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Tell him, when that our princely father York\nBless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,\nAnd charged us from his soul to love each other,\nHe little thought of this divided friendship:\nBid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.


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Right,\nAs snow in harvest. Thou deceivest thyself:\n'Tis he that sent us hither now to slaughter thee.


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It cannot be; for when I parted with him,\nHe hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,\nThat he would labour my delivery.


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Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,\nTo counsel me to make my peace with God,\nAnd art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,\nThat thou wilt war with God by murdering me?\nAh, sirs, consider, he that set you on\nTo do this deed will hate you for the deed.


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Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\nWhich of you, if you were a prince's son,\nBeing pent from liberty, as I am now,\nif two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\nWould not entreat for life?\nMy friend, I spy some pity in thy looks:\nO, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\nCome thou on my side, and entreat for me,\nAs you would beg, were you in my distress\nA begging prince what beggar pities not?


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Take that, and that: if all this will not do,\n[Stabs him]\nI'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.


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A bloody deed, and desperately dispatch'd!\nHow fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\nOf this most grievous guilty murder done!


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How now! what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not?\nBy heavens, the duke shall know how slack thou art!


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I would he knew that I had saved his brother!\nTake thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\nFor I repent me that the duke is slain.


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So do not I: go, coward as thou art.\nNow must I hide his body in some hole,\nUntil the duke take order for his burial:\nAnd when I have my meed, I must away;\nFor this will out, and here I must not stay.\n[Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD IV sick, QUEEN]\nELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM,\nGREY, and others]


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Why, so: now have I done a good day's work:\nYou peers, continue this united league:\nI every day expect an embassage\nFrom my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\nAnd now in peace my soul shall part to heaven,\nSince I have set my friends at peace on earth.\nRivers and Hastings, take each other's hand;\nDissemble not your hatred, swear your love.


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Take heed you dally not before your king;\nLest he that is the supreme King of kings\nConfound your hidden falsehood, and award\nEither of you to be the other's end.


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Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,\nNor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;\nYou have been factious one against the other,\nWife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\nAnd what you do, do it unfeignedly.


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Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league\nWith thy embracements to my wife's allies,\nAnd make me happy in your unity.


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Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate\nOn you or yours,\n[To the Queen]\nbut with all duteous love\nDoth cherish you and yours, God punish me\nWith hate in those where I expect most love!\nWhen I have most need to employ a friend,\nAnd most assured that he is a friend\nDeep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\nBe he unto me! this do I beg of God,\nWhen I am cold in zeal to yours.


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A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\nis this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\nThere wanteth now our brother Gloucester here,\nTo make the perfect period of this peace.


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Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\nBrother, we done deeds of charity;\nMade peace enmity, fair love of hate,\nBetween these swelling wrong-incensed peers.


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A blessed labour, my most sovereign liege:\nAmongst this princely heap, if any here,\nBy false intelligence, or wrong surmise,\nHold me a foe;\nIf I unwittingly, or in my rage,\nHave aught committed that is hardly borne\nBy any in this presence, I desire\nTo reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\nI hate it, and desire all good men's love.\nFirst, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\nWhich I will purchase with my duteous service;\nOf you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\nIf ever any grudge were lodged between us;\nOf you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you;\nThat without desert have frown'd on me;\nDukes, earls, lords, gentlemen; indeed, of all.\nI do not know that Englishman alive\nWith whom my soul is any jot at odds\nMore than the infant that is born to-night\nI thank my God for my humility.


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A holy day shall this be kept hereafter:\nI would to God all strifes were well compounded.\nMy sovereign liege, I do beseech your majesty\nTo take our brother Clarence to your grace.


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Why, madam, have I offer'd love for this\nTo be so bouted in this royal presence?\nWho knows not that the noble duke is dead?\n[They all start]\nYou do him injury to scorn his corse.


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But he, poor soul, by your first order died,\nAnd that a winged Mercury did bear:\nSome tardy cripple bore the countermand,\nThat came too lag to see him buried.\nGod grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\nNearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,\nDeserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\nAnd yet go current from suspicion!


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The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\nWho slew to-day a righteous gentleman\nLately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.


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Have a tongue to doom my brother's death,\nAnd shall the same give pardon to a slave?\nMy brother slew no man; his fault was thought,\nAnd yet his punishment was cruel death.\nWho sued to me for him? who, in my rage,\nKneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advised\nWho spake of brotherhood? who spake of love?\nWho told me how the poor soul did forsake\nThe mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?\nWho told me, in the field by Tewksbury\nWhen Oxford had me down, he rescued me,\nAnd said, 'Dear brother, live, and be a king'?\nWho told me, when we both lay in the field\nFrozen almost to death, how he did lap me\nEven in his own garments, and gave himself,\nAll thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\nAll this from my remembrance brutish wrath\nSinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\nHad so much grace to put it in my mind.\nBut when your carters or your waiting-vassals\nHave done a drunken slaughter, and defaced\nThe precious image of our dear Redeemer,\nYou straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\nAnd I unjustly too, must grant it you\nBut for my brother not a man would speak,\nNor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\nFor him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\nHave been beholding to him in his life;\nYet none of you would once plead for his life.\nO God, I fear thy justice will take hold\nOn me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!\nCome, Hastings, help me to my closet.\nOh, poor Clarence!


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This is the fruit of rashness! Mark'd you not\nHow that the guilty kindred of the queen\nLook'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\nO, they did urge it still unto the king!\nGod will revenge it. But come, let us in,\nTo comfort Edward with our company.


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Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\nAnd call us wretches, orphans, castaways\nIf that our noble father be alive?


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My pretty cousins, you mistake me much;\nI do lament the sickness of the king.\nAs loath to lose him, not your father's death;\nIt were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.


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Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead.\nThe king my uncle is to blame for this:\nGod will revenge it; whom I will importune\nWith daily prayers all to that effect.


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Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:\nIncapable and shallow innocents,\nYou cannot guess who caused your father's death.


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Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\nTold me, the king, provoked by the queen,\nDevised impeachments to imprison him :\nAnd when my uncle told me so, he wept,\nAnd hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\nBade me rely on him as on my father,\nAnd he would love me dearly as his child.


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Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,\nAnd with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!\nHe is my son; yea, and therein my shame;\nYet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.


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I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n[Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her]\nears; RIVERS, and DORSET after her]


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Oh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,\nTo chide my fortune, and torment myself?\nI'll join with black despair against my soul,\nAnd to myself become an enemy.


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To make an act of tragic violence:\nEdward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead.\nWhy grow the branches now the root is wither'd?\nWhy wither not the leaves the sap being gone?\nIf you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\nThat our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;\nOr, like obedient subjects, follow him\nTo his new kingdom of perpetual rest.


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Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\nAs I had title in thy noble husband!\nI have bewept a worthy husband's death,\nAnd lived by looking on his images:\nBut now two mirrors of his princely semblance\nAre crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\nAnd I for comfort have but one false glass,\nWhich grieves me when I see my shame in him.\nThou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,\nAnd hast the comfort of thy children left thee:\nBut death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms,\nAnd pluck'd two crutches from my feeble limbs,\nEdward and Clarence. O, what cause have I,\nThine being but a moiety of my grief,\nTo overgo thy plaints and drown thy cries!


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Give me no help in lamentation;\nI am not barren to bring forth complaints\nAll springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,\nThat I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\nMay send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\nOh for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!


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Was never mother had so dear a loss!\nAlas, I am the mother of these moans!\nTheir woes are parcell'd, mine are general.\nShe for an Edward weeps, and so do I;\nI for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:\nThese babes for Clarence weep and so do I;\nI for an Edward weep, so do not they:\nAlas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd,\nPour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\nAnd I will pamper it with lamentations.


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Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeased\nThat you take with unthankfulness, his doing:\nIn common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,\nWith dull unwilligness to repay a debt\nWhich with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\nMuch more to be thus opposite with heaven,\nFor it requires the royal debt it lent you.


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Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\nOf the young prince your son: send straight for him\nLet him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives:\nDrown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\nAnd plant your joys in living Edward's throne.


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Madam, have comfort: all of us have cause\nTo wail the dimming of our shining star;\nBut none can cure their harms by wailing them.\nMadam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\nI did not see your grace: humbly on my knee\nI crave your blessing.


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[Aside] Amen; and make me die a good old man!\nThat is the butt-end of a mother's blessing:\nI marvel why her grace did leave it out.


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You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing peers,\nThat bear this mutual heavy load of moan,\nNow cheer each other in each other's love\nThough we have spent our harvest of this king,\nWe are to reap the harvest of his son.\nThe broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,\nBut lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\nMust gently be preserved, cherish'd, and kept:\nMe seemeth good, that, with some little train,\nForthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fetch'd\nHither to London, to be crown'd our king.


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Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,\nThe new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\nWhich would be so much the more dangerous\nBy how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd:\nWhere every horse bears his commanding rein,\nAnd may direct his course as please himself,\nAs well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,\nIn my opinion, ought to be prevented.


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And so in me; and so, I think, in all:\nYet, since it is but green, it should be put\nTo no apparent likelihood of breach,\nWhich haply by much company might be urged:\nTherefore I say with noble Buckingham,\nThat it is meet so few should fetch the prince.


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Then be it so; and go we to determine\nWho they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\nMadam, and you, my mother, will you go\nTo give your censures in this weighty business?


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My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\nFor God's sake, let not us two be behind;\nFor, by the way, I'll sort occasion,\nAs index to the story we late talk'd of,\nTo part the queen's proud kindred from the king.


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My other self, my counsel's consistory,\nMy oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,\nI, like a child, will go by thy direction.\nTowards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.


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In him there is a hope of government,\nThat in his nonage council under him,\nAnd in his full and ripen'd years himself,\nNo doubt, shall then and till then govern well.


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Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot;\nFor then this land was famously enrich'd\nWith politic grave counsel; then the king\nHad virtuous uncles to protect his grace.


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Better it were they all came by the father,\nOr by the father there were none at all;\nFor emulation now, who shall be nearest,\nWill touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\nO, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\nAnd the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud:\nAnd were they to be ruled, and not to rule,\nThis sickly land might solace as before.


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When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;\nWhen great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;\nWhen the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\nUntimely storms make men expect a dearth.\nAll may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.


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Truly, the souls of men are full of dread:\nYe cannot reason almost with a man\nThat looks not heavily and full of fear.


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Before the times of change, still is it so:\nBy a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\nEnsuing dangers; as by proof, we see\nThe waters swell before a boisterous storm.\nBut leave it all to God. whither away?


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Last night, I hear, they lay at Northampton;\nAt Stony-Stratford will they be to-night:\nTo-morrow, or next day, they will be here.


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Grandam, one night, as we did sit at supper,\nMy uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\nMore than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle\nGloucester,\n'Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:'\nAnd since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\nBecause sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.


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Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\nIn him that did object the same to thee;\nHe was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\nSo long a-growing and so leisurely,\nThat, if this rule were true, he should be gracious.


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Now, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,\nI could have given my uncle's grace a flout,\nTo touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.


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Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\nThat he could gnaw a crust at two hours old\n'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\nGrandam, this would have been a biting jest.


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The sum of all I can, I have disclosed;\nWhy or for what these nobles were committed\nIs all unknown to me, my gracious lady.


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Ay me, I see the downfall of our house!\nThe tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;\nInsulting tyranny begins to jet\nUpon the innocent and aweless throne:\nWelcome, destruction, death, and massacre!\nI see, as in a map, the end of all.


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Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\nHow many of you have mine eyes beheld!\nMy husband lost his life to get the crown;\nAnd often up and down my sons were toss'd,\nFor me to joy and weep their gain and loss:\nAnd being seated, and domestic broils\nClean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors.\nMake war upon themselves; blood against blood,\nSelf against self: O, preposterous\nAnd frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen;\nOr let me die, to look on death no more!


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My gracious lady, go;\nAnd thither bear your treasure and your goods.\nFor my part, I'll resign unto your grace\nThe seal I keep: and so betide to me\nAs well I tender you and all of yours!\nCome, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.


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[Exeunt]\n[The trumpets sound. Enter the young PRINCE EDWARD,]\nGLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, CARDINAL, CATESBY, and others]


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No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\nHave made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy\nI want more uncles here to welcome me.


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Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years\nHath not yet dived into the world's deceit\nNor more can you distinguish of a man\nThan of his outward show; which, God he knows,\nSeldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\nThose uncles which you want were dangerous;\nYour grace attended to their sugar'd words,\nBut look'd not on the poison of their hearts :\nGod keep you from them, and from such false friends!


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I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all.\nI thought my mother, and my brother York,\nWould long ere this have met us on the way\nFie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\nTo tell us whether they will come or no!


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On what occasion, God he knows, not I,\nThe queen your mother, and your brother York,\nHave taken sanctuary: the tender prince\nWould fain have come with me to meet your grace,\nBut by his mother was perforce withheld.


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Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\nIs this of hers! Lord cardinal, will your grace\nPersuade the queen to send the Duke of York\nUnto his princely brother presently?\nIf she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,\nAnd from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.


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My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\nCan from his mother win the Duke of York,\nAnon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\nTo mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\nWe should infringe the holy privilege\nOf blessed sanctuary! not for all this land\nWould I be guilty of so deep a sin.


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You are too senseless--obstinate, my lord,\nToo ceremonious and traditional\nWeigh it but with the grossness of this age,\nYou break not sanctuary in seizing him.\nThe benefit thereof is always granted\nTo those whose dealings have deserved the place,\nAnd those who have the wit to claim the place:\nThis prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserved it;\nAnd therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:\nThen, taking him from thence that is not there,\nYou break no privilege nor charter there.\nOft have I heard of sanctuary men;\nBut sanctuary children ne'er till now.


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Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n[Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS]\nSay, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\nWhere shall we sojourn till our coronation?


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Where it seems best unto your royal self.\nIf I may counsel you, some day or two\nYour highness shall repose you at the Tower:\nThen where you please, and shall be thought most fit\nFor your best health and recreation.


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But say, my lord, it were not register'd,\nMethinks the truth should live from age to age,\nAs 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\nEven to the general all-ending day.


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I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n[Aside]\nThus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\nI moralize two meanings in one word.


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That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\nWith what his valour did enrich his wit,\nHis wit set down to make his valour live\nDeath makes no conquest of this conqueror;\nFor now he lives in fame, though not in life.\nI'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,--


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An if I live until I be a man,\nI'll win our ancient right in France again,\nOr die a soldier, as I lived a king.


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Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours:\nToo late he died that might have kept that title,\nWhich by his death hath lost much majesty.


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I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\nYou said that idle weeds are fast in growth\nThe prince my brother hath outgrown me far.


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You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me:\nUncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\nBecause that I am little, like an ape,\nHe thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.


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With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\nTo mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,\nHe prettily and aptly taunts himself:\nSo cunning and so young is wonderful.


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My lord, will't please you pass along?\nMyself and my good cousin Buckingham\nWill to your mother, to entreat of her\nTo meet you at the Tower and welcome you.


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An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\nBut come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\nThinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n[A Sennet. Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM]\nand CATESBY]


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Think you, my lord, this little prating York\nWas not incensed by his subtle mother\nTo taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?


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No doubt, no doubt; O, 'tis a parlous boy;\nBold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable\nHe is all the mother's, from the top to toe.


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Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\nThou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\nAs closely to conceal what we impart:\nThou know'st our reasons urged upon the way;\nWhat think'st thou? is it not an easy matter\nTo make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\nFor the instalment of this noble duke\nIn the seat royal of this famous isle?


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Well, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,\nAnd, as it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,\nHow doth he stand affected to our purpose;\nAnd summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\nTo sit about the coronation.\nIf thou dost find him tractable to us,\nEncourage him, and show him all our reasons:\nIf he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,\nBe thou so too; and so break off your talk,\nAnd give us notice of his inclination:\nFor we to-morrow hold divided councils,\nWherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.


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Commend me to Lord William: tell him, Catesby,\nHis ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\nTo-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle;\nAnd bid my friend, for joy of this good news,\nGive mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.


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Chop off his head, man; somewhat we will do:\nAnd, look, when I am king, claim thou of me\nThe earldom of Hereford, and the moveables\nWhereof the king my brother stood possess'd.


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And look to have it yielded with all willingness.\nCome, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\nWe may digest our complots in some form.


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And then he sends you word\nHe dreamt to-night the boar had razed his helm:\nBesides, he says there are two councils held;\nAnd that may be determined at the one\nwhich may make you and him to rue at the other.\nTherefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure,\nIf presently you will take horse with him,\nAnd with all speed post with him toward the north,\nTo shun the danger that his soul divines.


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Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\nBid him not fear the separated councils\nHis honour and myself are at the one,\nAnd at the other is my servant Catesby\nWhere nothing can proceed that toucheth us\nWhereof I shall not have intelligence.\nTell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance:\nAnd for his dreams, I wonder he is so fond\nTo trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers\nTo fly the boar before the boar pursues,\nWere to incense the boar to follow us\nAnd make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\nGo, bid thy master rise and come to me\nAnd we will both together to the Tower,\nWhere, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.


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It is a reeling world, indeed, my lord;\nAnd I believe twill never stand upright\nTim Richard wear the garland of the realm.


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I'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders\nEre I will see the crown so foul misplaced.\nBut canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?


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Ay, on my life; and hopes to find forward\nUpon his party for the gain thereof:\nAnd thereupon he sends you this good news,\nThat this same very day your enemies,\nThe kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.


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Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\nBecause they have been still mine enemies:\nBut, that I'll give my voice on Richard's side,\nTo bar my master's heirs in true descent,\nGod knows I will not do it, to the death.


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But I shall laugh at this a twelve-month hence,\nThat they who brought me in my master's hate\nI live to look upon their tragedy.\nI tell thee, Catesby--


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O monstrous, monstrous! and so falls it out\nWith Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so 'twill do\nWith some men else, who think themselves as safe\nAs thou and I; who, as thou know'st, are dear\nTo princely Richard and to Buckingham.


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I know they do; and I have well deserved it.\n[Enter STANLEY]\nCome on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\nFear you the boar, and go so unprovided?


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My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby:\nYou may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\nI do not like these several councils, I.


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My lord,\nI hold my life as dear as you do yours;\nAnd never in my life, I do protest,\nWas it more precious to me than 'tis now:\nThink you, but that I know our state secure,\nI would be so triumphant as I am?


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The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\nWere jocund, and supposed their state was sure,\nAnd they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\nBut yet, you see how soon the day o'ercast.\nThis sudden stag of rancour I misdoubt:\nPray God, I say, I prove a needless coward!\nWhat, shall we toward the Tower? the day is spent.


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They, for their truth, might better wear their heads\nThan some that have accused them wear their hats.\nBut come, my lord, let us away.


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Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n[Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY]\nHow now, sirrah! how goes the world with thee?


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I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\nThan when I met thee last where now we meet:\nThen was I going prisoner to the Tower,\nBy the suggestion of the queen's allies;\nBut now, I tell thee--keep it to thyself--\nThis day those enemies are put to death,\nAnd I in better state than e'er I was.


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I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\nI am in your debt for your last exercise;\nCome the next Sabbath, and I will content you.


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What, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain?\nYour friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;\nYour honour hath no shriving work in hand.


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Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\nThose men you talk of came into my mind.\nWhat, go you toward the Tower?


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Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\nTo-day shalt thou behold a subject die\nFor truth, for duty, and for loyalty.


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O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\nFatal and ominous to noble peers!\nWithin the guilty closure of thy walls\nRichard the second here was hack'd to death;\nAnd, for more slander to thy dismal seat,\nWe give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.


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Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she Buckingham,\nThen cursed she Richard. O, remember, God\nTo hear her prayers for them, as now for us\nAnd for my sister and her princely sons,\nBe satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\nWhich, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.


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[Exeunt]\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP OF]\nELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, with others, and take their\nseats at a table]


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My lords, at once: the cause why we are met\nIs, to determine of the coronation.\nIn God's name, speak: when is the royal day?


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Who, I, my lord I we know each other's faces,\nBut for our hearts, he knows no more of mine,\nThan I of yours;\nNor I no more of his, than you of mine.\nLord Hastings, you and he are near in love.


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I thank his grace, I know he loves me well;\nBut, for his purpose in the coronation.\nI have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\nHis gracious pleasure any way therein:\nBut you, my noble lords, may name the time;\nAnd in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\nWhich, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.


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My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.\nI have been long a sleeper; but, I hope,\nMy absence doth neglect no great designs,\nWhich by my presence might have been concluded.


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Had not you come upon your cue, my lord\nWilliam Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,--\nI mean, your voice,--for crowning of the king.


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When I was last in Holborn,\nI saw good strawberries in your garden there\nI do beseech you send for some of them.


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Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n[Drawing him aside]\nCatesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\nAnd finds the testy gentleman so hot,\nAs he will lose his head ere give consent\nHis master's son, as worshipful as he terms it,\nShall lose the royalty of England's throne.


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We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\nTo-morrow, in mine opinion, is too sudden;\nFor I myself am not so well provided\nAs else I would be, were the day prolong'd.


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His grace looks cheerfully and smooth to-day;\nThere's some conceit or other likes him well,\nWhen he doth bid good morrow with such a spirit.\nI think there's never a man in Christendom\nThat can less hide his love or hate than he;\nFor by his face straight shall you know his heart.


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I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\nThat do conspire my death with devilish plots\nOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\nUpon my body with their hellish charms?


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The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,\nMakes me most forward in this noble presence\nTo doom the offenders, whatsoever they be\nI say, my lord, they have deserved death.


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Then be your eyes the witness of this ill:\nSee how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\nIs, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\nAnd this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\nConsorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\nThat by their witchcraft thus have marked me.


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If I thou protector of this damned strumpet--\nTellest thou me of 'ifs'? Thou art a traitor:\nOff with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,\nI will not dine until I see the same.\nLovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done:\nThe rest, that love me, rise and follow me.


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Woe, woe for England! not a whit for me;\nFor I, too fond, might have prevented this.\nStanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;\nBut I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly:\nThree times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\nAnd startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,\nAs loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\nO, now I want the priest that spake to me:\nI now repent I told the pursuivant\nAs 'twere triumphing at mine enemies,\nHow they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\nAnd I myself secure in grace and favour.\nO Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\nIs lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!


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O momentary grace of mortal men,\nWhich we more hunt for than the grace of God!\nWho builds his hopes in air of your good looks,\nLives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\nReady, with every nod, to tumble down\nInto the fatal bowels of the deep.


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O bloody Richard! miserable England!\nI prophesy the fearful'st time to thee\nThat ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\nCome, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\nThey smile at me that shortly shall be dead.


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Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,\nMurder thy breath in the middle of a word,\nAnd then begin again, and stop again,\nAs if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?


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Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\nSpeak and look back, and pry on every side,\nTremble and start at wagging of a straw,\nIntending deep suspicion: ghastly looks\nAre at my service, like enforced smiles;\nAnd both are ready in their offices,\nAt any time, to grace my stratagems.\nBut what, is Catesby gone?


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So dear I loved the man, that I must weep.\nI took him for the plainest harmless creature\nThat breathed upon this earth a Christian;\nMade him my book wherein my soul recorded\nThe history of all her secret thoughts:\nSo smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,\nThat, his apparent open guilt omitted,\nI mean, his conversation with Shore's wife,\nHe lived from all attainder of suspect.


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Well, well, he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor\nThat ever lived.\nWould you imagine, or almost believe,\nWere't not that, by great preservation,\nWe live to tell it you, the subtle traitor\nThis day had plotted, in the council-house\nTo murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?


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What, think You we are Turks or infidels?\nOr that we would, against the form of law,\nProceed thus rashly to the villain's death,\nBut that the extreme peril of the case,\nThe peace of England and our persons' safety,\nEnforced us to this execution?


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Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death;\nAnd you my good lords, both have well proceeded,\nTo warn false traitors from the like attempts.\nI never look'd for better at his hands,\nAfter he once fell in with Mistress Shore.


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Yet had not we determined he should die,\nUntil your lordship came to see his death;\nWhich now the loving haste of these our friends,\nSomewhat against our meaning, have prevented:\nBecause, my lord, we would have had you heard\nThe traitor speak, and timorously confess\nThe manner and the purpose of his treason;\nThat you might well have signified the same\nUnto the citizens, who haply may\nMisconstrue us in him and wail his death.


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But, my good lord, your grace's word shall serve,\nAs well as I had seen and heard him speak\nAnd doubt you not, right noble princes both,\nBut I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\nWith all your just proceedings in this cause.


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But since you come too late of our intents,\nYet witness what you hear we did intend:\nAnd so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.


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Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\nThe mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:\nThere, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\nInfer the bastardy of Edward's children:\nTell them how Edward put to death a citizen,\nOnly for saying he would make his son\nHeir to the crown; meaning indeed his house,\nWhich, by the sign thereof was termed so.\nMoreover, urge his hateful luxury\nAnd bestial appetite in change of lust;\nWhich stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,\nEven where his lustful eye or savage heart,\nWithout control, listed to make his prey.\nNay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\nTell them, when that my mother went with child\nOf that unsatiate Edward, noble York\nMy princely father then had wars in France\nAnd, by just computation of the time,\nFound that the issue was not his begot;\nWhich well appeared in his lineaments,\nBeing nothing like the noble duke my father:\nBut touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off,\nBecause you know, my lord, my mother lives.


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Fear not, my lord, I'll play the orator\nAs if the golden fee for which I plead\nWere for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.


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If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's Castle;\nWhere you shall find me well accompanied\nWith reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.


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Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;\n[To CATESBY]\nGo thou to Friar Penker; bid them both\nMeet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n[Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER]\nNow will I in, to take some privy order,\nTo draw the brats of Clarence out of sight;\nAnd to give notice, that no manner of person\nAt any time have recourse unto the princes.


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This is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\nWhich in a set hand fairly is engross'd,\nThat it may be this day read over in Paul's.\nAnd mark how well the sequel hangs together:\nEleven hours I spent to write it over,\nFor yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;\nThe precedent was full as long a-doing:\nAnd yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,\nUntainted, unexamined, free, at liberty\nHere's a good world the while! Why who's so gross,\nThat seeth not this palpable device?\nYet who's so blind, but says he sees it not?\nBad is the world; and all will come to nought,\nWhen such bad dealings must be seen in thought.


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I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\nAnd his contract by deputy in France;\nThe insatiate greediness of his desires,\nAnd his enforcement of the city wives;\nHis tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\nAs being got, your father then in France,\nHis resemblance, being not like the duke;\nWithal I did infer your lineaments,\nBeing the right idea of your father,\nBoth in your form and nobleness of mind;\nLaid open all your victories in Scotland,\nYour dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,\nYour bounty, virtue, fair humility:\nIndeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose\nUntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse\nAnd when mine oratory grew to an end\nI bid them that did love their country's good\nCry 'God save Richard, England's royal king!'


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No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\nBut, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\nGazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\nWhich when I saw, I reprehended them;\nAnd ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:\nHis answer was, the people were not wont\nTo be spoke to but by the recorder.\nThen he was urged to tell my tale again,\n'Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;'\nBut nothing spake in warrant from himself.\nWhen he had done, some followers of mine own,\nAt the lower end of the hall, hurl'd up their caps,\nAnd some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\nAnd thus I took the vantage of those few,\n'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I;\n'This general applause and loving shout\nArgues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:'\nAnd even here brake off, and came away.


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The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;\nBe not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:\nAnd look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\nAnd stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;\nFor on that ground I'll build a holy descant:\nAnd be not easily won to our request:\nPlay the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.


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I go; and if you plead as well for them\nAs I can say nay to thee for myself,\nNo doubt well bring it to a happy issue.


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Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.\n[Exit GLOUCESTER]\n[Enter the Lord Mayor and Citizens]\nWelcome my lord; I dance attendance here;\nI think the duke will not be spoke withal.\n[Enter CATESBY]\nHere comes his servant: how now, Catesby,\nWhat says he?


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My lord: he doth entreat your grace;\nTo visit him to-morrow or next day:\nHe is within, with two right reverend fathers,\nDivinely bent to meditation;\nAnd no worldly suit would he be moved,\nTo draw him from his holy exercise.


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Return, good Catesby, to thy lord again;\nTell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,\nIn deep designs and matters of great moment,\nNo less importing than our general good,\nAre come to have some conference with his grace.


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Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\nHe is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,\nBut on his knees at meditation;\nNot dallying with a brace of courtezans,\nBut meditating with two deep divines;\nNot sleeping, to engross his idle body,\nBut praying, to enrich his watchful soul:\nHappy were England, would this gracious prince\nTake on himself the sovereignty thereof:\nBut, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.


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My lord,\nHe wonders to what end you have assembled\nSuch troops of citizens to speak with him,\nHis grace not being warn'd thereof before:\nMy lord, he fears you mean no good to him.


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Sorry I am my noble cousin should\nSuspect me, that I mean no good to him:\nBy heaven, I come in perfect love to him;\nAnd so once more return and tell his grace.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nWhen holy and devout religious men\nAre at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,\nSo sweet is zealous contemplation.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two Bishops.]\nCATESBY returns]


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Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\nTo stay him from the fall of vanity:\nAnd, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\nTrue ornaments to know a holy man.\nFamous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,\nLend favourable ears to our request;\nAnd pardon us the interruption\nOf thy devotion and right Christian zeal.


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My lord, there needs no such apology:\nI rather do beseech you pardon me,\nWho, earnest in the service of my God,\nNeglect the visitation of my friends.\nBut, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?


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I do suspect I have done some offence\nThat seems disgracious in the city's eyes,\nAnd that you come to reprehend my ignorance.


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Then know, it is your fault that you resign\nThe supreme seat, the throne majestical,\nThe scepter'd office of your ancestors,\nYour state of fortune and your due of birth,\nThe lineal glory of your royal house,\nTo the corruption of a blemished stock:\nWhilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\nWhich here we waken to our country's good,\nThis noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\nHer face defaced with scars of infamy,\nHer royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\nAnd almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf\nOf blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.\nWhich to recure, we heartily solicit\nYour gracious self to take on you the charge\nAnd kingly government of this your land,\nNot as protector, steward, substitute,\nOr lowly factor for another's gain;\nBut as successively from blood to blood,\nYour right of birth, your empery, your own.\nFor this, consorted with the citizens,\nYour very worshipful and loving friends,\nAnd by their vehement instigation,\nIn this just suit come I to move your grace.


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I know not whether to depart in silence,\nOr bitterly to speak in your reproof.\nBest fitteth my degree or your condition\nIf not to answer, you might haply think\nTongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\nTo bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\nWhich fondly you would here impose on me;\nIf to reprove you for this suit of yours,\nSo season'd with your faithful love to me.\nThen, on the other side, I cheque'd my friends.\nTherefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,\nAnd then, in speaking, not to incur the last,\nDefinitively thus I answer you.\nYour love deserves my thanks; but my desert\nUnmeritable shuns your high request.\nFirst if all obstacles were cut away,\nAnd that my path were even to the crown,\nAs my ripe revenue and due by birth\nYet so much is my poverty of spirit,\nSo mighty and so many my defects,\nAs I had rather hide me from my greatness,\nBeing a bark to brook no mighty sea,\nThan in my greatness covet to be hid,\nAnd in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\nBut, God be thank'd, there's no need of me,\nAnd much I need to help you, if need were;\nThe royal tree hath left us royal fruit,\nWhich, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\nWill well become the seat of majesty,\nAnd make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\nOn him I lay what you would lay on me,\nThe right and fortune of his happy stars;\nWhich God defend that I should wring from him!


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My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;\nBut the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\nAll circumstances well considered.\nYou say that Edward is your brother's son:\nSo say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\nFor first he was contract to Lady Lucy--\nYour mother lives a witness to that vow--\nAnd afterward by substitute betroth'd\nTo Bona, sister to the King of France.\nThese both put by a poor petitioner,\nA care-crazed mother of a many children,\nA beauty-waning and distressed widow,\nEven in the afternoon of her best days,\nMade prize and purchase of his lustful eye,\nSeduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts\nTo base declension and loathed bigamy\nBy her, in his unlawful bed, he got\nThis Edward, whom our manners term the prince.\nMore bitterly could I expostulate,\nSave that, for reverence to some alive,\nI give a sparing limit to my tongue.\nThen, good my lord, take to your royal self\nThis proffer'd benefit of dignity;\nIf non to bless us and the land withal,\nYet to draw forth your noble ancestry\nFrom the corruption of abusing times,\nUnto a lineal true-derived course.


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Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?\nI am unfit for state and majesty;\nI do beseech you, take it not amiss;\nI cannot nor I will not yield to you.


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If you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal,\nLoath to depose the child, Your brother's son;\nAs well we know your tenderness of heart\nAnd gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\nWhich we have noted in you to your kin,\nAnd egally indeed to all estates,--\nYet whether you accept our suit or no,\nYour brother's son shall never reign our king;\nBut we will plant some other in the throne,\nTo the disgrace and downfall of your house:\nAnd in this resolution here we leave you.--\nCome, citizens: 'zounds! I'll entreat no more.


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Would you enforce me to a world of care?\nWell, call them again. I am not made of stone,\nBut penetrable to your. kind entreats,\nAlbeit against my conscience and my soul.\n[Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest]\nCousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,\nSince you will buckle fortune on my back,\nTo bear her burthen, whether I will or no,\nI must have patience to endure the load:\nBut if black scandal or foul-faced reproach\nAttend the sequel of your imposition,\nYour mere enforcement shall acquittance me\nFrom all the impure blots and stains thereof;\nFor God he knows, and you may partly see,\nHow far I am from the desire thereof.


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[Exeunt]\n[Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF]\nYORK, and DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of\nGloucester, leading Lady Margaret Plantagenet,\nCLARENCE's young Daughter]


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Who meets us here? my niece Plantagenet\nLed in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\nNow, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,\nOn pure heart's love to greet the tender princes.\nDaughter, well met.


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No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\nUpon the like devotion as yourselves,\nTo gratulate the gentle princes there.


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Kind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.\n[Enter BRAKENBURY]\nAnd, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\nMaster lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\nHow doth the prince, and my young son of York?


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Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\nI may not suffer you to visit them;\nThe king hath straitly charged the contrary.


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The Lord protect him from that kingly title!\nHath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?\nI am their mother; who should keep me from them?


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Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:\nThen bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame\nAnd take thy office from thee, on my peril.


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Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\nAnd I'll salute your grace of York as mother,\nAnd reverend looker on, of two fair queens.\n[To LADY ANNE]\nCome, madam, you must straight to Westminster,\nThere to be crowned Richard's royal queen.


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O, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart\nMay have some scope to beat, or else I swoon\nWith this dead-killing news!


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O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!\nDeath and destruction dog thee at the heels;\nThy mother's name is ominous to children.\nIf thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\nAnd live with Richmond, from the reach of hell\nGo, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\nLest thou increase the number of the dead;\nAnd make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\nNor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.


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Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\nTake all the swift advantage of the hours;\nYou shall have letters from me to my son\nTo meet you on the way, and welcome you.\nBe not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.


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O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\nO my accursed womb, the bed of death!\nA cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\nWhose unavoided eye is murderous.


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And I in all unwillingness will go.\nI would to God that the inclusive verge\nOf golden metal that must round my brow\nWere red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\nAnointed let me be with deadly venom,\nAnd die, ere men can say, God save the queen!


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No! why? When he that is my husband now\nCame to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse,\nWhen scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\nWhich issued from my other angel husband\nAnd that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd;\nO, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\nThis was my wish: 'Be thou,' quoth I, ' accursed,\nFor making me, so young, so old a widow!\nAnd, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\nAnd be thy wife--if any be so mad--\nAs miserable by the life of thee\nAs thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!\nLo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\nEven in so short a space, my woman's heart\nGrossly grew captive to his honey words\nAnd proved the subject of my own soul's curse,\nWhich ever since hath kept my eyes from rest;\nFor never yet one hour in his bed\nHave I enjoy'd the golden dew of sleep,\nBut have been waked by his timorous dreams.\nBesides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\nAnd will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.


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[To DORSET]\nGo thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee!\n[To LADY ANNE]\nGo thou to Richard, and good angels guard thee!\n[To QUEEN ELIZABETH]\nGo thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee!\nI to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\nEighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\nAnd each hour's joy wrecked with a week of teen.


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Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.\nPity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\nWhom envy hath immured within your walls!\nRough cradle for such little pretty ones!\nRude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\nFor tender princes, use my babies well!\nSo foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.


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[Exeunt]\n[Sennet. Enter KING RICHARD III, in pomp, crowned;]\nBUCKINGHAM, CATESBY, a page, and others]


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Give me thy hand.\n[Here he ascendeth his throne]\nThus high, by thy advice\nAnd thy assistance, is King Richard seated;\nBut shall we wear these honours for a day?\nOr shall they last, and we rejoice in them?


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O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\nTo try if thou be current gold indeed\nYoung Edward lives: think now what I would say.


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O bitter consequence,\nThat Edward still should live! 'True, noble prince!'\nCousin, thou wert not wont to be so dull:\nShall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;\nAnd I would have it suddenly perform'd.\nWhat sayest thou? speak suddenly; be brief.


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Give me some breath, some little pause, my lord\nBefore I positively herein:\nI will resolve your grace immediately.


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I will converse with iron-witted fools\nAnd unrespective boys: none are for me\nThat look into me with considerate eyes:\nHigh-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\nBoy!


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My lord, I know a discontented gentleman,\nWhose humble means match not his haughty mind:\nGold were as good as twenty orators,\nAnd will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.


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I partly know the man: go, call him hither.\n[Exit Page]\nThe deep-revolving witty Buckingham\nNo more shall be the neighbour to my counsel:\nHath he so long held out with me untired,\nAnd stops he now for breath?\n[Enter STANLEY]\nHow now! what news with you?


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My lord, I hear the Marquis Dorset's fled\nTo Richmond, in those parts beyond the sea\nWhere he abides.


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Rumour it abroad\nThat Anne, my wife, is sick and like to die:\nI will take order for her keeping close.\nInquire me out some mean-born gentleman,\nWhom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter:\nThe boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\nLook, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\nThat Anne my wife is sick and like to die:\nAbout it; for it stands me much upon,\nTo stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nI must be married to my brother's daughter,\nOr else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\nMurder her brothers, and then marry her!\nUncertain way of gain! But I am in\nSo far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:\nTear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n[Re-enter Page, with TYRREL]\nIs thy name Tyrrel?


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Why, there thou hast it: two deep enemies,\nFoes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers\nAre they that I would have thee deal upon:\nTyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.


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Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrel\nGo, by this token: rise, and lend thine ear:\n[Whispers]\nThere is no more but so: say it is done,\nAnd I will love thee, and prefer thee too.


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My lord, I claim your gift, my due by promise,\nFor which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;\nThe earldom of Hereford and the moveables\nThe which you promised I should possess.


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As I remember, Henry the Sixth\nDid prophesy that Richmond should be king,\nWhen Richmond was a little peevish boy.\nA king, perhaps, perhaps,--


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Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\nThe mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,\nAnd call'd it Rougemont: at which name I started,\nBecause a bard of Ireland told me once\nI should not live long after I saw Richmond.


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Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke\nBetwixt thy begging and my meditation.\nI am not in the giving vein to-day.


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Is it even so? rewards he my true service\nWith such deep contempt made I him king for this?\nO, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\nTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on!


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The tyrannous and bloody deed is done.\nThe most arch of piteous massacre\nThat ever yet this land was guilty of.\nDighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn\nTo do this ruthless piece of butchery,\nAlthough they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\nMelting with tenderness and kind compassion\nWept like two children in their deaths' sad stories.\n'Lo, thus' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes:'\n'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another\nWithin their innocent alabaster arms:\nTheir lips were four red roses on a stalk,\nWhich in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\nA book of prayers on their pillow lay;\nWhich once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind;\nBut O! the devil'--there the villain stopp'd\nWhilst Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\nThe most replenished sweet work of nature,\nThat from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\nThus both are gone with conscience and remorse;\nThey could not speak; and so I left them both,\nTo bring this tidings to the bloody king.\nAnd here he comes.\n[Enter KING RICHARD III]\nAll hail, my sovereign liege!


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If to have done the thing you gave in charge\nBeget your happiness, be happy then,\nFor it is done, my lord.


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Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\nAnd thou shalt tell the process of their death.\nMeantime, but think how I may do thee good,\nAnd be inheritor of thy desire.\nFarewell till soon.\n[Exit TYRREL]\nThe son of Clarence have I pent up close;\nHis daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\nThe sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\nAnd Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.\nNow, for I know the Breton Richmond aims\nAt young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\nAnd, by that knot, looks proudly o'er the crown,\nTo her I go, a jolly thriving wooer.


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Bad news, my lord: Ely is fled to Richmond;\nAnd Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\nIs in the field, and still his power increaseth.


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Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\nThan Buckingham and his rash-levied army.\nCome, I have heard that fearful commenting\nIs leaden servitor to dull delay;\nDelay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary\nThen fiery expedition be my wing,\nJove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\nCome, muster men: my counsel is my shield;\nWe must be brief when traitors brave the field.


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So, now prosperity begins to mellow\nAnd drop into the rotten mouth of death.\nHere in these confines slily have I lurk'd,\nTo watch the waning of mine adversaries.\nA dire induction am I witness to,\nAnd will to France, hoping the consequence\nWill prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\nWithdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?


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Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!\nMy unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\nIf yet your gentle souls fly in the air\nAnd be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\nHover about me with your airy wings\nAnd hear your mother's lamentation!


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So many miseries have crazed my voice,\nThat my woe-wearied tongue is mute and dumb,\nEdward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?


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Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,\nAnd throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\nWhen didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?


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Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal living ghost,\nWoe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\nBrief abstract and record of tedious days,\nRest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,\n[Sitting down]\nUnlawfully made drunk with innocents' blood!


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O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave\nAs thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\nThen would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\nO, who hath any cause to mourn but I?


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If ancient sorrow be most reverend,\nGive mine the benefit of seniory,\nAnd let my woes frown on the upper hand.\nIf sorrow can admit society,\n[Sitting down with them]\nTell o'er your woes again by viewing mine:\nI had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nI had a Harry, till a Richard kill'd him:\nThou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\nThou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him;


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Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill'd him.\nFrom forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\nA hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:\nThat dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,\nTo worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\nThat foul defacer of God's handiwork,\nThat excellent grand tyrant of the earth,\nThat reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\nThy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.\nO upright, just, and true-disposing God,\nHow do I thank thee, that this carnal cur\nPreys on the issue of his mother's body,\nAnd makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!


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Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\nAnd now I cloy me with beholding it.\nThy Edward he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward:\nThy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\nYoung York he is but boot, because both they\nMatch not the high perfection of my loss:\nThy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward;\nAnd the beholders of this tragic play,\nThe adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\nUntimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\nRichard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer,\nOnly reserved their factor, to buy souls\nAnd send them thither: but at hand, at hand,\nEnsues his piteous and unpitied end:\nEarth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray.\nTo have him suddenly convey'd away.\nCancel his bond of life, dear God, I prey,\nThat I may live to say, The dog is dead!


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O, thou didst prophesy the time would come\nThat I should wish for thee to help me curse\nThat bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!


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I call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;\nI call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;\nThe presentation of but what I was;\nThe flattering index of a direful pageant;\nOne heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;\nA mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;\nA dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,\nA sign of dignity, a garish flag,\nTo be the aim of every dangerous shot,\nA queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\nWhere is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?\nWhere are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?\nWho sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?\nWhere be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?\nWhere be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?\nDecline all this, and see what now thou art:\nFor happy wife, a most distressed widow;\nFor joyful mother, one that wails the name;\nFor queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\nFor one being sued to, one that humbly sues;\nFor one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\nFor one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\nFor one commanding all, obey'd of none.\nThus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,\nAnd left thee but a very prey to time;\nHaving no more but thought of what thou wert,\nTo torture thee the more, being what thou art.\nThou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\nUsurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\nNow thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;\nFrom which even here I slip my weary neck,\nAnd leave the burthen of it all on thee.\nFarewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:\nThese English woes will make me smile in France.


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Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days;\nCompare dead happiness with living woe;\nThink that thy babes were fairer than they were,\nAnd he that slew them fouler than he is:\nBettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse:\nRevolving this will teach thee how to curse.


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Windy attorneys to their client woes,\nAiry succeeders of intestate joys,\nPoor breathing orators of miseries!\nLet them have scope: though what they do impart\nHelp not all, yet do they ease the heart.


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If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.\nAnd in the breath of bitter words let's smother\nMy damned son, which thy two sweet sons smother'd.\nI hear his drum: be copious in exclaims.


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O, she that might have intercepted thee,\nBy strangling thee in her accursed womb\nFrom all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!


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Hidest thou that forehead with a golden crown,\nWhere should be graven, if that right were right,\nThe slaughter of the prince that owed that crown,\nAnd the dire death of my two sons and brothers?\nTell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?


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A flourish, trumpets! strike alarum, drums!\nLet not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\nRail on the Lord's enointed: strike, I say!\n[Flourish. Alarums]\nEither be patient, and entreat me fair,\nOr with the clamorous report of war\nThus will I drown your exclamations.


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No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,\nThou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.\nA grievous burthen was thy birth to me;\nTetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\nThy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,\nThy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,\nThy age confirm'd, proud, subdued, bloody,\ntreacherous,\nMore mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:\nWhat comfortable hour canst thou name,\nThat ever graced me in thy company?


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Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\nyour grace\nTo breakfast once forth of my company.\nIf I be so disgracious in your sight,\nLet me march on, and not offend your grace.\nStrike the drum.


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Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance,\nEre from this war thou turn a conqueror,\nOr I with grief and extreme age shall perish\nAnd never look upon thy face again.\nTherefore take with thee my most heavy curse;\nWhich, in the day of battle, tire thee more\nThan all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\nMy prayers on the adverse party fight;\nAnd there the little souls of Edward's children\nWhisper the spirits of thine enemies\nAnd promise them success and victory.\nBloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;\nShame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.


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I have no more sons of the royal blood\nFor thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,\nThey shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\nAnd therefore level not to hit their lives.


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And must she die for this? O, let her live,\nAnd I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;\nSlander myself as false to Edward's bed;\nThrow over her the veil of infamy:\nSo she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\nI will confess she was not Edward's daughter.


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True, when avoided grace makes destiny:\nMy babes were destined to a fairer death,\nIf grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.


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Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd\nOf comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\nWhose hand soever lanced their tender hearts,\nThy head, all indirectly, gave direction:\nNo doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt\nTill it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,\nTo revel in the entrails of my lambs.\nBut that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,\nMy tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\nTill that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\nAnd I, in such a desperate bay of death,\nLike a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\nRush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.


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Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\nAnd dangerous success of bloody wars,\nAs I intend more good to you and yours,\nThan ever you or yours were by me wrong'd!


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Flatter my sorrows with report of it;\nTell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\nCanst thou demise to any child of mine?


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Even all I have; yea, and myself and all,\nWill I withal endow a child of thine;\nSo in the Lethe of thy angry soul\nThou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\nWhich thou supposest I have done to thee.


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That thou dost love my daughter from thy soul:\nSo from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers;\nAnd from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.


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Be not so hasty to confound my meaning:\nI mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,\nAnd mean to make her queen of England.


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Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,\nA pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave\nEdward and York; then haply she will weep:\nTherefore present to her--as sometime Margaret\nDid to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--\nA handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\nThe purple sap from her sweet brother's body\nAnd bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.\nIf this inducement force her not to love,\nSend her a story of thy noble acts;\nTell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence,\nHer uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake,\nMadest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.


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There is no other way\nUnless thou couldst put on some other shape,\nAnd not be Richard that hath done all this.


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Look, what is done cannot be now amended:\nMen shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\nWhich after hours give leisure to repent.\nIf I did take the kingdom from your sons,\nTo make amends, Ill give it to your daughter.\nIf I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\nTo quicken your increase, I will beget\nMine issue of your blood upon your daughter\nA grandam's name is little less in love\nThan is the doting title of a mother;\nThey are as children but one step below,\nEven of your mettle, of your very blood;\nOf an one pain, save for a night of groans\nEndured of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\nYour children were vexation to your youth,\nBut mine shall be a comfort to your age.\nThe loss you have is but a son being king,\nAnd by that loss your daughter is made queen.\nI cannot make you what amends I would,\nTherefore accept such kindness as I can.\nDorset your son, that with a fearful soul\nLeads discontented steps in foreign soil,\nThis fair alliance quickly shall call home\nTo high promotions and great dignity:\nThe king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife.\nFamiliarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\nAgain shall you be mother to a king,\nAnd all the ruins of distressful times\nRepair'd with double riches of content.\nWhat! we have many goodly days to see:\nThe liquid drops of tears that you have shed\nShall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\nAdvantaging their loan with interest\nOf ten times double gain of happiness.\nGo, then my mother, to thy daughter go\nMake bold her bashful years with your experience;\nPrepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale\nPut in her tender heart the aspiring flame\nOf golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess\nWith the sweet silent hours of marriage joys\nAnd when this arm of mine hath chastised\nThe petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\nBound with triumphant garlands will I come\nAnd lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\nTo whom I will retail my conquest won,\nAnd she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.


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What were I best to say? her father's brother\nWould be her lord? or shall I say, her uncle?\nOr, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\nUnder what title shall I woo for thee,\nThat God, the law, my honour and her love,\nCan make seem pleasing to her tender years?


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By nothing; for this is no oath:\nThe George, profaned, hath lost his holy honour;\nThe garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\nThe crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory.\nif something thou wilt swear to be believed,\nSwear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.


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God's wrong is most of all.\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe unity the king thy brother made\nHad not been broken, nor my brother slain:\nIf thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\nThe imperial metal, circling now thy brow,\nHad graced the tender temples of my child,\nAnd both the princes had been breathing here,\nWhich now, two tender playfellows to dust,\nThy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.\nWhat canst thou swear by now?


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That thou hast wronged in the time o'erpast;\nFor I myself have many tears to wash\nHereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\nThe children live, whose parents thou hast\nslaughter'd,\nUngovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\nThe parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd,\nOld wither'd plants, to wail it with their age.\nSwear not by time to come; for that thou hast\nMisused ere used, by time misused o'erpast.


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As I intend to prosper and repent,\nSo thrive I in my dangerous attempt\nOf hostile arms! myself myself confound!\nHeaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\nDay, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\nBe opposite all planets of good luck\nTo my proceedings, if, with pure heart's love,\nImmaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\nI tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!\nIn her consists my happiness and thine;\nWithout her, follows to this land and me,\nTo thee, herself, and many a Christian soul,\nDeath, desolation, ruin and decay:\nIt cannot be avoided but by this;\nIt will not be avoided but by this.\nTherefore, good mother,--I must can you so--\nBe the attorney of my love to her:\nPlead what I will be, not what I have been;\nNot my deserts, but what I will deserve:\nUrge the necessity and state of times,\nAnd be not peevish-fond in great designs.


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But in your daughter's womb I bury them:\nWhere in that nest of spicery they shall breed\nSelves of themselves, to your recomforture.


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Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n[Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH]\nRelenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n[Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following]\nHow now! what news?


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My gracious sovereign, on the western coast\nRideth a puissant navy; to the shore\nThrong many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\nUnarm'd, and unresolved to beat them back:\n'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\nAnd there they hull, expecting but the aid\nOf Buckingham to welcome them ashore.


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Fly to the duke:\n[To RATCLIFF]\nPost thou to Salisbury\nWhen thou comest thither--\n[To CATESBY]\nDull, unmindful villain,\nWhy stand'st thou still, and go'st not to the duke?


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O, true, good Catesby: bid him levy straight\nThe greatest strength and power he can make,\nAnd meet me presently at Salisbury.


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Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\nWhy dost thou run so many mile about,\nWhen thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way?\nOnce more, what news?


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Is the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd?\nIs the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?\nWhat heir of York is there alive but we?\nAnd who is England's king but great York's heir?\nThen, tell me, what doth he upon the sea?


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Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\nYou cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\nThou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.


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Where is thy power, then, to beat him back?\nWhere are thy tenants and thy followers?\nAre they not now upon the western shore.\nSafe-conducting the rebels from their ships!


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Cold friends to Richard: what do they in the north,\nWhen they should serve their sovereign in the west?


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They have not been commanded, mighty sovereign:\nPlease it your majesty to give me leave,\nI'll muster up my friends, and meet your grace\nWhere and what time your majesty shall please.


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Most mighty sovereign,\nYou have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful:\nI never was nor never will be false.


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Well,\nGo muster men; but, hear you, leave behind\nYour son, George Stanley: look your faith be firm.\nOr else his head's assurance is but frail.


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My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\nAs I by friends am well advertised,\nSir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate\nBishop of Exeter, his brother there,\nWith many more confederates, are in arms.


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My liege, in Kent the Guildfords are in arms;\nAnd every hour more competitors\nFlock to their aid, and still their power increaseth.


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Out on you, owls! nothing but songs of death?\n[He striketh him]\nTake that, until thou bring me better news.


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The news I have to tell your majesty\nIs, that by sudden floods and fall of waters,\nBuckingham's army is dispersed and scatter'd;\nAnd he himself wander'd away alone,\nNo man knows whither.


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I cry thee mercy:\nThere is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\nHath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\nReward to him that brings the traitor in?


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Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis Dorset,\n'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\nYet this good comfort bring I to your grace,\nThe Breton navy is dispersed by tempest:\nRichmond, in Yorkshire, sent out a boat\nUnto the shore, to ask those on the banks\nIf they were his assistants, yea or no;\nWho answer'd him, they came from Buckingham.\nUpon his party: he, mistrusting them,\nHoisted sail and made away for Brittany.


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March on, march on, since we are up in arms;\nIf not to fight with foreign enemies,\nYet to beat down these rebels here at home.


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My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken;\nThat is the best news: that the Earl of Richmond\nIs with a mighty power landed at Milford,\nIs colder tidings, yet they must be told.


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Away towards Salisbury! while we reason here,\nA royal battle might be won and lost\nSome one take order Buckingham be brought\nTo Salisbury; the rest march on with me.


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Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\nThat in the sty of this most bloody boar\nMy son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold:\nIf I revolt, off goes young George's head;\nThe fear of that withholds my present aid.\nBut, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?


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Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\nSir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;\nOxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\nAnd Rice ap Thomas with a valiant crew;\nAnd many more of noble fame and worth:\nAnd towards London they do bend their course,\nIf by the way they be not fought withal.


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Return unto thy lord; commend me to him:\nTell him the queen hath heartily consented\nHe shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\nThese letters will resolve him of my mind. Farewell.


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Hastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,\nHoly King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\nVaughan, and all that have miscarried\nBy underhand corrupted foul injustice,\nIf that your moody discontented souls\nDo through the clouds behold this present hour,\nEven for revenge mock my destruction!\nThis is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?


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Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\nThis is the day that, in King Edward's time,\nI wish't might fall on me, when I was found\nFalse to his children or his wife's allies\nThis is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\nBy the false faith of him I trusted most;\nThis, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\nIs the determined respite of my wrongs:\nThat high All-Seer that I dallied with\nHath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\nAnd given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\nThus doth he force the swords of wicked men\nTo turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:\nNow Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;\n'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\nRemember Margaret was a prophetess.'\nCome, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;\nWrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.


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Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\nBruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,\nThus far into the bowels of the land\nHave we march'd on without impediment;\nAnd here receive we from our father Stanley\nLines of fair comfort and encouragement.\nThe wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\nThat spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\nSwills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\nIn your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine\nLies now even in the centre of this isle,\nNear to the town of Leicester, as we learn\nFrom Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\nIn God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,\nTo reap the harvest of perpetual peace\nBy this one bloody trial of sharp war.


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All for our vantage. Then, in God's name, march:\nTrue hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:\nKings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.


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Up with my tent there! here will I lie tonight;\nBut where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\nWho hath descried the number of the foe?


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Why, our battalion trebles that account:\nBesides, the king's name is a tower of strength,\nWhich they upon the adverse party want.\nUp with my tent there! Valiant gentlemen,\nLet us survey the vantage of the field\nCall for some men of sound direction\nLet's want no discipline, make no delay,\nFor, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.\n[Exeunt]\n[Enter, on the other side of the field, RICHMOND,]\nSir William Brandon, OXFORD, and others. Some of\nthe Soldiers pitch RICHMOND's tent]


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The weary sun hath made a golden set,\nAnd by the bright track of his fiery car,\nGives signal, of a goodly day to-morrow.\nSir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\nGive me some ink and paper in my tent\nI'll draw the form and model of our battle,\nLimit each leader to his several charge,\nAnd part in just proportion our small strength.\nMy Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,\nAnd you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.\nThe Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment:\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him\nAnd by the second hour in the morning\nDesire the earl to see me in my tent:\nYet one thing more, good Blunt, before thou go'st,\nWhere is Lord Stanley quarter'd, dost thou know?


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Unless I have mista'en his colours much,\nWhich well I am assured I have not done,\nHis regiment lies half a mile at least\nSouth from the mighty power of the king.


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If without peril it be possible,\nGood Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him,\nAnd give him from me this most needful scroll.


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Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,\nLet us consult upon to-morrow's business\nIn to our tent; the air is raw and cold.\n[They withdraw into the tent]\n[Enter, to his tent, KING RICHARD III, NORFOLK,]\nRATCLIFF, CATESBY, and others]


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I will not sup to-night.\nGive me some ink and paper.\nWhat, is my beaver easier than it was?\nAnd all my armour laid into my tent?


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Send out a pursuivant at arms\nTo Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\nBefore sunrising, lest his son George fall\nInto the blind cave of eternal night.\n[Exit CATESBY]\nFill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\nSaddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\nLook that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\nRatcliff!


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Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\nMuch about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\nWent through the army, cheering up the soldiers.


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So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:\nI have not that alacrity of spirit,\nNor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.\nSet it down. Is ink and paper ready?


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Bid my guard watch; leave me.\nRatcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent\nAnd help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n[Exeunt RATCLIFF and the other Attendants]\n[Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent, Lords and]\nothers attending]


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All comfort that the dark night can afford\nBe to thy person, noble father-in-law!\nTell me, how fares our loving mother?


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I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother\nWho prays continually for Richmond's good:\nSo much for that. The silent hours steal on,\nAnd flaky darkness breaks within the east.\nIn brief,--for so the season bids us be,--\nPrepare thy battle early in the morning,\nAnd put thy fortune to the arbitrement\nOf bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\nI, as I may--that which I would I cannot,--\nWith best advantage will deceive the time,\nAnd aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms:\nBut on thy side I may not be too forward\nLest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\nBe executed in his father's sight.\nFarewell: the leisure and the fearful time\nCuts off the ceremonious vows of love\nAnd ample interchange of sweet discourse,\nWhich so long sunder'd friends should dwell upon:\nGod give us leisure for these rites of love!\nOnce more, adieu: be valiant, and speed well!


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Good lords, conduct him to his regiment:\nI'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap,\nLest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow,\nWhen I should mount with wings of victory:\nOnce more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n[Exeunt all but RICHMOND]\nO Thou, whose captain I account myself,\nLook on my forces with a gracious eye;\nPut in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,\nThat they may crush down with a heavy fall\nThe usurping helmets of our adversaries!\nMake us thy ministers of chastisement,\nThat we may praise thee in the victory!\nTo thee I do commend my watchful soul,\nEre I let fall the windows of mine eyes:\nSleeping and waking, O, defend me still!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!\nThink, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth\nAt Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nBe cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged souls\nOf butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf\nKing Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nWhen I was mortal, my anointed body\nBy thee was punched full of deadly holes\nThink on the Tower and me: despair, and die!\nHarry the Sixth bids thee despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nVirtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\nHarry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king,\nDoth comfort thee in thy sleep: live, and flourish!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!\nI, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\nPoor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death!\nTo-morrow in the battle think on me,\nAnd fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!--\n[To RICHMOND]\nThou offspring of the house of Lancaster\nThe wronged heirs of York do pray for thee\nGood angels guard thy battle! live, and flourish!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nLet me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow,\nRivers. that died at Pomfret! despair, and die!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nThink upon Vaughan, and, with guilty fear,\nLet fall thy lance: despair, and die!


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[To RICHMOND]\nAwake, and think our wrongs in Richard's bosom\nWill conquer him! awake, and win the day!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nBloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\nAnd in a bloody battle end thy days!\nThink on Lord Hastings: despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nQuiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\nArm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nDream on thy cousins smother'd in the Tower:\nLet us be led within thy bosom, Richard,\nAnd weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\nThy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nSleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy;\nGood angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\nLive, and beget a happy race of kings!\nEdward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nRichard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,\nThat never slept a quiet hour with thee,\nNow fills thy sleep with perturbations\nTo-morrow in the battle think on me,\nAnd fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!\n[To RICHMOND]\nThou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep\nDream of success and happy victory!\nThy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.


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[To KING RICHARD III]\nThe last was I that helped thee to the crown;\nThe last was I that felt thy tyranny:\nO, in the battle think on Buckingham,\nAnd die in terror of thy guiltiness!\nDream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death:\nFainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n[To RICHMOND]\nI died for hope ere I could lend thee aid:\nBut cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay'd:\nGod and good angel fight on Richmond's side;\nAnd Richard falls in height of all his pride.


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Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.\nHave mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.\nO coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\nThe lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\nCold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\nWhat do I fear? myself? there's none else by:\nRichard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\nIs there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:\nThen fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:\nLest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?\nAlack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good\nThat I myself have done unto myself?\nO, no! alas, I rather hate myself\nFor hateful deeds committed by myself!\nI am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.\nFool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.\nMy conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\nAnd every tongue brings in a several tale,\nAnd every tale condemns me for a villain.\nPerjury, perjury, in the high'st degree\nMurder, stem murder, in the direst degree;\nAll several sins, all used in each degree,\nThrong to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!\nI shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\nAnd if I die, no soul shall pity me:\nNay, wherefore should they, since that I myself\nFind in myself no pity to myself?\nMethought the souls of all that I had murder'd\nCame to my tent; and every one did threat\nTo-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.


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Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\nHath twice done salutation to the morn;\nYour friends are up, and buckle on their armour.


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By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\nHave struck more terror to the soul of Richard\nThan can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\nArmed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.\nIt is not yet near day. Come, go with me;\nUnder our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\nTo see if any mean to shrink from me.


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The sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams\nThat ever enter'd in a drowsy head,\nHave I since your departure had, my lords.\nMethought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd,\nCame to my tent, and cried on victory:\nI promise you, my soul is very jocund\nIn the remembrance of so fair a dream.\nHow far into the morning is it, lords?


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Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n[His oration to his soldiers]\nMore than I have said, loving countrymen,\nThe leisure and enforcement of the time\nForbids to dwell upon: yet remember this,\nGod and our good cause fight upon our side;\nThe prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\nLike high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\nRichard except, those whom we fight against\nHad rather have us win than him they follow:\nFor what is he they follow? truly, gentlemen,\nA bloody tyrant and a homicide;\nOne raised in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\nOne that made means to come by what he hath,\nAnd slaughter'd those that were the means to help him;\nAbase foul stone, made precious by the foil\nOf England's chair, where he is falsely set;\nOne that hath ever been God's enemy:\nThen, if you fight against God's enemy,\nGod will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\nIf you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\nYou sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\nIf you do fight against your country's foes,\nYour country's fat shall pay your pains the hire;\nIf you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\nYour wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\nIf you do free your children from the sword,\nYour children's children quit it in your age.\nThen, in the name of God and all these rights,\nAdvance your standards, draw your willing swords.\nFor me, the ransom of my bold attempt\nShall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\nBut if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\nThe least of you shall share his part thereof.\nSound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\nGod and Saint George! Richmond and victory!\n[Exeunt]\n[Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants]\nand Forces]


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He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n[Clock striketh]\nTen the clock there. Give me a calendar.\nWho saw the sun to-day?


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Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\nHe should have braved the east an hour ago\nA black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff!


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The sun will not be seen to-day;\nThe sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\nI would these dewy tears were from the ground.\nNot shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\nMore than to Richmond? for the selfsame heaven\nThat frowns on me looks sadly upon him.


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Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse.\nCall up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:\nI will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\nAnd thus my battle shall be ordered:\nMy foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\nConsisting equally of horse and foot;\nOur archers shall be placed in the midst\nJohn Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\nShall have the leading of this foot and horse.\nThey thus directed, we will follow\nIn the main battle, whose puissance on either side\nShall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\nThis, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou, Norfolk?


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[Reads]\n'Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold,\nFor Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\nA thing devised by the enemy.\nGo, gentleman, every man unto his charge\nLet not our babbling dreams affright our souls:\nConscience is but a word that cowards use,\nDevised at first to keep the strong in awe:\nOur strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\nMarch on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell\nIf not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n[His oration to his Army]\nWhat shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\nRemember whom you are to cope withal;\nA sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\nA scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants,\nWhom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\nTo desperate ventures and assured destruction.\nYou sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\nYou having lands, and blest with beauteous wives,\nThey would restrain the one, distain the other.\nAnd who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\nLong kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost?\nA milk-sop, one that never in his life\nFelt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\nLet's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\nLash hence these overweening rags of France,\nThese famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\nWho, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\nFor want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves:\nIf we be conquer'd, let men conquer us,\nAnd not these bastard Bretons; whom our fathers\nHave in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\nAnd in record, left them the heirs of shame.\nShall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives?\nRavish our daughters?\n[Drum afar off]\nHark! I hear their drum.\nFight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yoemen!\nDraw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\nSpur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\nAmaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n[Enter a Messenger]\nWhat says Lord Stanley? will he bring his power?


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A thousand hearts are great within my bosom:\nAdvance our standards, set upon our foes\nOur ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\nInspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\nUpon them! victory sits on our helms.


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Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\nThe king enacts more wonders than a man,\nDaring an opposite to every danger:\nHis horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\nSeeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\nRescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!


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Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,\nAnd I will stand the hazard of the die:\nI think there be six Richmonds in the field;\nFive have I slain to-day instead of him.\nA horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!


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[Exeunt]\n[Alarum. Enter KING RICHARD III and RICHMOND; they]\nfight. KING RICHARD III is slain. Retreat and\nflourish. Re-enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the\ncrown, with divers other Lords]


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Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.\nLo, here, this long-usurped royalty\nFrom the dead temples of this bloody wretch\nHave I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal:\nWear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.


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Inter their bodies as becomes their births:\nProclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\nThat in submission will return to us:\nAnd then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\nWe will unite the white rose and the red:\nSmile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\nThat long have frown'd upon their enmity!\nWhat traitor hears me, and says not amen?\nEngland hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\nThe brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\nThe father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\nThe son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:\nAll this divided York and Lancaster,\nDivided in their dire division,\nO, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,\nThe true succeeders of each royal house,\nBy God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\nAnd let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.\nEnrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,\nWith smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!\nAbate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\nThat would reduce these bloody days again,\nAnd make poor England weep in streams of blood!\nLet them not live to taste this land's increase\nThat would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\nNow civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:\nThat she may long live here, God say amen!


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Two households, both alike in dignity,\nIn fair Verona, where we lay our scene,\nFrom ancient grudge break to new mutiny,\nWhere civil blood makes civil hands unclean.\nFrom forth the fatal loins of these two foes\nA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;\nWhole misadventured piteous overthrows\nDo with their death bury their parents' strife.\nThe fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,\nAnd the continuance of their parents' rage,\nWhich, but their children's end, nought could remove,\nIs now the two hours' traffic of our stage;\nThe which if you with patient ears attend,\nWhat here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.


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To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:\ntherefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.


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True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\nare ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push\nMontague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids\nto the wall.


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'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I\nhave fought with the men, I will be cruel with the\nmaids, and cut off their heads.


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'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou\nhadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes\ntwo of the house of the Montagues.


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What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,\nAs I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:\nHave at thee, coward!\n[They fight]\n[Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray;]\nthen enter Citizens, with clubs]


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Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!\nDown with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!


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Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\nProfaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--\nWill they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\nThat quench the fire of your pernicious rage\nWith purple fountains issuing from your veins,\nOn pain of torture, from those bloody hands\nThrow your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,\nAnd hear the sentence of your moved prince.\nThree civil brawls, bred of an airy word,\nBy thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\nHave thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,\nAnd made Verona's ancient citizens\nCast by their grave beseeming ornaments,\nTo wield old partisans, in hands as old,\nCanker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:\nIf ever you disturb our streets again,\nYour lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\nFor this time, all the rest depart away:\nYou Capulet; shall go along with me:\nAnd, Montague, come you this afternoon,\nTo know our further pleasure in this case,\nTo old Free-town, our common judgment-place.\nOnce more, on pain of death, all men depart.


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Here were the servants of your adversary,\nAnd yours, close fighting ere I did approach:\nI drew to part them: in the instant came\nThe fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,\nWhich, as he breathed defiance to my ears,\nHe swung about his head and cut the winds,\nWho nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:\nWhile we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\nCame more and more and fought on part and part,\nTill the prince came, who parted either part.


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Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\nPeer'd forth the golden window of the east,\nA troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\nWhere, underneath the grove of sycamore\nThat westward rooteth from the city's side,\nSo early walking did I see your son:\nTowards him I made, but he was ware of me\nAnd stole into the covert of the wood:\nI, measuring his affections by my own,\nThat most are busied when they're most alone,\nPursued my humour not pursuing his,\nAnd gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.


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Many a morning hath he there been seen,\nWith tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.\nAdding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\nBut all so soon as the all-cheering sun\nShould in the furthest east begin to draw\nThe shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\nAway from the light steals home my heavy son,\nAnd private in his chamber pens himself,\nShuts up his windows, locks far daylight out\nAnd makes himself an artificial night:\nBlack and portentous must this humour prove,\nUnless good counsel may the cause remove.


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Both by myself and many other friends:\nBut he, his own affections' counsellor,\nIs to himself--I will not say how true--\nBut to himself so secret and so close,\nSo far from sounding and discovery,\nAs is the bud bit with an envious worm,\nEre he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,\nOr dedicate his beauty to the sun.\nCould we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.\nWe would as willingly give cure as know.


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Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,\nShould, without eyes, see pathways to his will!\nWhere shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\nYet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\nHere's much to do with hate, but more with love.\nWhy, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\nO any thing, of nothing first create!\nO heavy lightness! serious vanity!\nMis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\nFeather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,\nsick health!\nStill-waking sleep, that is not what it is!\nThis love feel I, that feel no love in this.\nDost thou not laugh?


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Why, such is love's transgression.\nGriefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\nWhich thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\nWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shown\nDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.\nLove is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;\nBeing purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\nBeing vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:\nWhat is it else? a madness most discreet,\nA choking gall and a preserving sweet.\nFarewell, my coz.


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Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:\nAh, word ill urged to one that is so ill!\nIn sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.


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Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit\nWith Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;\nAnd, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\nFrom love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\nShe will not stay the siege of loving terms,\nNor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,\nNor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:\nO, she is rich in beauty, only poor,\nThat when she dies with beauty dies her store.


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She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,\nFor beauty starved with her severity\nCuts beauty off from all posterity.\nShe is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\nTo merit bliss by making me despair:\nShe hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\nDo I live dead that live to tell it now.


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'Tis the way\nTo call hers exquisite, in question more:\nThese happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows\nBeing black put us in mind they hide the fair;\nHe that is strucken blind cannot forget\nThe precious treasure of his eyesight lost:\nShow me a mistress that is passing fair,\nWhat doth her beauty serve, but as a note\nWhere I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\nFarewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.


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But Montague is bound as well as I,\nIn penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\nFor men so old as we to keep the peace.


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Of honourable reckoning are you both;\nAnd pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.\nBut now, my lord, what say you to my suit?


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But saying o'er what I have said before:\nMy child is yet a stranger in the world;\nShe hath not seen the change of fourteen years,\nLet two more summers wither in their pride,\nEre we may think her ripe to be a bride.


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And too soon marr'd are those so early made.\nThe earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,\nShe is the hopeful lady of my earth:\nBut woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,\nMy will to her consent is but a part;\nAn she agree, within her scope of choice\nLies my consent and fair according voice.\nThis night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\nWhereto I have invited many a guest,\nSuch as I love; and you, among the store,\nOne more, most welcome, makes my number more.\nAt my poor house look to behold this night\nEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:\nSuch comfort as do lusty young men feel\nWhen well-apparell'd April on the heel\nOf limping winter treads, even such delight\nAmong fresh female buds shall you this night\nInherit at my house; hear all, all see,\nAnd like her most whose merit most shall be:\nWhich on more view, of many mine being one\nMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,\nCome, go with me.\n[To Servant, giving a paper]\nGo, sirrah, trudge about\nThrough fair Verona; find those persons out\nWhose names are written there, and to them say,\nMy house and welcome on their pleasure stay.


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Find them out whose names are written here! It is\nwritten, that the shoemaker should meddle with his\nyard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with\nhis pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am\nsent to find those persons whose names are here\nwrit, and can never find what names the writing\nperson hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.


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Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,\nOne pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\nTurn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\nOne desperate grief cures with another's languish:\nTake thou some new infection to thy eye,\nAnd the rank poison of the old will die.


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Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;\nShut up in prison, kept without my food,\nWhipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.


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Stay, fellow; I can read.\n[Reads]\n'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\nCounty Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady\nwidow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely\nnieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine\nuncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece\nRosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin\nTybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair\nassembly: whither should they come?


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Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the\ngreat rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house\nof Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.\nRest you merry!


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At this same ancient feast of Capulet's\nSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,\nWith all the admired beauties of Verona:\nGo thither; and, with unattainted eye,\nCompare her face with some that I shall show,\nAnd I will make thee think thy swan a crow.


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When the devout religion of mine eye\nMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\nAnd these, who often drown'd could never die,\nTransparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\nOne fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun\nNe'er saw her match since first the world begun.


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Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,\nHerself poised with herself in either eye:\nBut in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\nYour lady's love against some other maid\nThat I will show you shining at this feast,\nAnd she shall scant show well that now shows best.


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Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,\nI bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!\nGod forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!


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This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,\nWe must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;\nI have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.\nThou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.


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I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--\nAnd yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--\nShe is not fourteen. How long is it now\nTo Lammas-tide?


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Even or odd, of all days in the year,\nCome Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.\nSusan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--\nWere of an age: well, Susan is with God;\nShe was too good for me: but, as I said,\nOn Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;\nThat shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\nAnd she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--\nOf all the days of the year, upon that day:\nFor I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\nSitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;\nMy lord and you were then at Mantua:--\nNay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,\nWhen it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\nOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\nTo see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\nShake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,\nTo bid me trudge:\nAnd since that time it is eleven years;\nFor then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,\nShe could have run and waddled all about;\nFor even the day before, she broke her brow:\nAnd then my husband--God be with his soul!\nA' was a merry man--took up the child:\n'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,\nThe pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'\nTo see, now, how a jest shall come about!\nI warrant, an I should live a thousand years,\nI never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;\nAnd, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'


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Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,\nTo think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\nAnd yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow\nA bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;\nA parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:\n'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?\nThou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\nWilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'


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Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\nThou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:\nAn I might live to see thee married once,\nI have my wish.


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Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme\nI came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\nHow stands your disposition to be married?


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Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,\nHere in Verona, ladies of esteem,\nAre made already mothers: by my count,\nI was your mother much upon these years\nThat you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\nThe valiant Paris seeks you for his love.


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What say you? can you love the gentleman?\nThis night you shall behold him at our feast;\nRead o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\nAnd find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\nExamine every married lineament,\nAnd see how one another lends content\nAnd what obscured in this fair volume lies\nFind written in the margent of his eyes.\nThis precious book of love, this unbound lover,\nTo beautify him, only lacks a cover:\nThe fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\nFor fair without the fair within to hide:\nThat book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\nThat in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\nSo shall you share all that he doth possess,\nBy having him, making yourself no less.


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I'll look to like, if looking liking move:\nBut no more deep will I endart mine eye\nThan your consent gives strength to make it fly.


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Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you\ncalled, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in\nthe pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must\nhence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.


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The date is out of such prolixity:\nWe'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\nBearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\nScaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;\nNor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\nAfter the prompter, for our entrance:\nBut let them measure us by what they will;\nWe'll measure them a measure, and be gone.


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Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes\nWith nimble soles: I have a soul of lead\nSo stakes me to the ground I cannot move.


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I am too sore enpierced with his shaft\nTo soar with his light feathers, and so bound,\nI cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:\nUnder love's heavy burden do I sink.


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If love be rough with you, be rough with love;\nPrick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\nGive me a case to put my visage in:\nA visor for a visor! what care I\nWhat curious eye doth quote deformities?\nHere are the beetle brows shall blush for me.


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A torch for me: let wantons light of heart\nTickle the senseless rushes with their heels,\nFor I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;\nI'll be a candle-holder, and look on.\nThe game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.


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Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:\nIf thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\nOf this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\nUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!


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I mean, sir, in delay\nWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\nTake our good meaning, for our judgment sits\nFive times in that ere once in our five wits.


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O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\nShe is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\nIn shape no bigger than an agate-stone\nOn the fore-finger of an alderman,\nDrawn with a team of little atomies\nAthwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\nHer wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,\nThe cover of the wings of grasshoppers,\nThe traces of the smallest spider's web,\nThe collars of the moonshine's watery beams,\nHer whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,\nHer wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,\nNot so big as a round little worm\nPrick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\nHer chariot is an empty hazel-nut\nMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\nTime out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\nAnd in this state she gallops night by night\nThrough lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\nO'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,\nO'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,\nO'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\nWhich oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\nBecause their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:\nSometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\nAnd then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\nAnd sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\nTickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,\nThen dreams, he of another benefice:\nSometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\nAnd then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\nOf breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\nOf healths five-fathom deep; and then anon\nDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\nAnd being thus frighted swears a prayer or two\nAnd sleeps again. This is that very Mab\nThat plats the manes of horses in the night,\nAnd bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,\nWhich once untangled, much misfortune bodes:\nThis is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\nThat presses them and learns them first to bear,\nMaking them women of good carriage:\nThis is she--


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True, I talk of dreams,\nWhich are the children of an idle brain,\nBegot of nothing but vain fantasy,\nWhich is as thin of substance as the air\nAnd more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\nEven now the frozen bosom of the north,\nAnd, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\nTurning his face to the dew-dropping south.


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I fear, too early: for my mind misgives\nSome consequence yet hanging in the stars\nShall bitterly begin his fearful date\nWith this night's revels and expire the term\nOf a despised life closed in my breast\nBy some vile forfeit of untimely death.\nBut He, that hath the steerage of my course,\nDirect my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.


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When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\nhands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.


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Away with the joint-stools, remove the\ncourt-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save\nme a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let\nthe porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\nAntony, and Potpan!


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Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes\nUnplagued with corns will have a bout with you.\nAh ha, my mistresses! which of you all\nWill now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,\nShe, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?\nWelcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\nThat I have worn a visor and could tell\nA whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\nSuch as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:\nYou are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.\nA hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\n[Music plays, and they dance]\nMore light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,\nAnd quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\nAh, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\nNay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;\nFor you and I are past our dancing days:\nHow long is't now since last yourself and I\nWere in a mask?


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What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:\n'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,\nCome pentecost as quickly as it will,\nSome five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.


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O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\nIt seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\nLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;\nBeauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\nSo shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,\nAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\nThe measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,\nAnd, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\nDid my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!\nFor I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.


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This, by his voice, should be a Montague.\nFetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave\nCome hither, cover'd with an antic face,\nTo fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\nNow, by the stock and honour of my kin,\nTo strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.


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Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,\nA villain that is hither come in spite,\nTo scorn at our solemnity this night.


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Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;\nHe bears him like a portly gentleman;\nAnd, to say truth, Verona brags of him\nTo be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:\nI would not for the wealth of all the town\nHere in my house do him disparagement:\nTherefore be patient, take no note of him:\nIt is my will, the which if thou respect,\nShow a fair presence and put off these frowns,\nAnd ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.


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He shall be endured:\nWhat, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;\nAm I the master here, or you? go to.\nYou'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!\nYou'll make a mutiny among my guests!\nYou will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!


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Go to, go to;\nYou are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?\nThis trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:\nYou must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.\nWell said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:\nBe quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!\nI'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!


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Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting\nMakes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\nI will withdraw: but this intrusion shall\nNow seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.


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[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand\nThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:\nMy lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand\nTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.


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Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this;\nFor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.


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Marry, bachelor,\nHer mother is the lady of the house,\nAnd a good lady, and a wise and virtuous\nI nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;\nI tell you, he that can lay hold of her\nShall have the chinks.


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Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\nWe have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\nIs it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all\nI thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.\nMore torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.\nAh, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:\nI'll to my rest.


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My only love sprung from my only hate!\nToo early seen unknown, and known too late!\nProdigious birth of love it is to me,\nThat I must love a loathed enemy.


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Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,\nAnd young affection gapes to be his heir;\nThat fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\nWith tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\nNow Romeo is beloved and loves again,\nAlike betwitched by the charm of looks,\nBut to his foe supposed he must complain,\nAnd she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:\nBeing held a foe, he may not have access\nTo breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;\nAnd she as much in love, her means much less\nTo meet her new-beloved any where:\nBut passion lends them power, time means, to meet\nTempering extremities with extreme sweet.


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Nay, I'll conjure too.\nRomeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\nAppear thou in the likeness of a sigh:\nSpeak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;\nCry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'\nSpeak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\nOne nick-name for her purblind son and heir,\nYoung Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,\nWhen King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!\nHe heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;\nThe ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\nI conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,\nBy her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\nBy her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh\nAnd the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\nThat in thy likeness thou appear to us!


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This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him\nTo raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\nOf some strange nature, letting it there stand\nTill she had laid it and conjured it down;\nThat were some spite: my invocation\nIs fair and honest, and in his mistress' name\nI conjure only but to raise up him.


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Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,\nTo be consorted with the humorous night:\nBlind is his love and best befits the dark.


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If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\nNow will he sit under a medlar tree,\nAnd wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\nAs maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.\nRomeo, that she were, O, that she were\nAn open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!\nRomeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;\nThis field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:\nCome, shall we go?


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He jests at scars that never felt a wound.\n[JULIET appears above at a window]\nBut, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?\nIt is the east, and Juliet is the sun.\nArise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\nWho is already sick and pale with grief,\nThat thou her maid art far more fair than she:\nBe not her maid, since she is envious;\nHer vestal livery is but sick and green\nAnd none but fools do wear it; cast it off.\nIt is my lady, O, it is my love!\nO, that she knew she were!\nShe speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?\nHer eye discourses; I will answer it.\nI am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:\nTwo of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\nHaving some business, do entreat her eyes\nTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.\nWhat if her eyes were there, they in her head?\nThe brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,\nAs daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\nWould through the airy region stream so bright\nThat birds would sing and think it were not night.\nSee, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\nO, that I were a glove upon that hand,\nThat I might touch that cheek!


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She speaks:\nO, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\nAs glorious to this night, being o'er my head\nAs is a winged messenger of heaven\nUnto the white-upturned wondering eyes\nOf mortals that fall back to gaze on him\nWhen he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\nAnd sails upon the bosom of the air.


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O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\nDeny thy father and refuse thy name;\nOr, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\nAnd I'll no longer be a Capulet.


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'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;\nThou art thyself, though not a Montague.\nWhat's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\nNor arm, nor face, nor any other part\nBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!\nWhat's in a name? that which we call a rose\nBy any other name would smell as sweet;\nSo Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\nRetain that dear perfection which he owes\nWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,\nAnd for that name which is no part of thee\nTake all myself.


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I take thee at thy word:\nCall me but love, and I'll be new baptized;\nHenceforth I never will be Romeo.


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By a name\nI know not how to tell thee who I am:\nMy name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\nBecause it is an enemy to thee;\nHad I it written, I would tear the word.


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My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words\nOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:\nArt thou not Romeo and a Montague?


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How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\nThe orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\nAnd the place death, considering who thou art,\nIf any of my kinsmen find thee here.


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With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;\nFor stony limits cannot hold love out,\nAnd what love can do that dares love attempt;\nTherefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.


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Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye\nThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,\nAnd I am proof against their enmity.


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I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\nAnd but thou love me, let them find me here:\nMy life were better ended by their hate,\nThan death prorogued, wanting of thy love.


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By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;\nHe lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.\nI am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\nAs that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\nI would adventure for such merchandise.


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Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,\nElse would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\nFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night\nFain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny\nWhat I have spoke: but farewell compliment!\nDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'\nAnd I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,\nThou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries\nThen say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\nIf thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:\nOr if thou think'st I am too quickly won,\nI'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,\nSo thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\nIn truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\nAnd therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:\nBut trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\nThan those that have more cunning to be strange.\nI should have been more strange, I must confess,\nBut that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\nMy true love's passion: therefore pardon me,\nAnd not impute this yielding to light love,\nWhich the dark night hath so discovered.


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O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,\nThat monthly changes in her circled orb,\nLest that thy love prove likewise variable.


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Do not swear at all;\nOr, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\nWhich is the god of my idolatry,\nAnd I'll believe thee.


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Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,\nI have no joy of this contract to-night:\nIt is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\nToo like the lightning, which doth cease to be\nEre one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\nThis bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\nMay prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.\nGood night, good night! as sweet repose and rest\nCome to thy heart as that within my breast!


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But to be frank, and give it thee again.\nAnd yet I wish but for the thing I have:\nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea,\nMy love as deep; the more I give to thee,\nThe more I have, for both are infinite.\n[Nurse calls within]\nI hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!\nAnon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\nStay but a little, I will come again.


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O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.\nBeing in night, all this is but a dream,\nToo flattering-sweet to be substantial.


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Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\nIf that thy bent of love be honourable,\nThy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\nBy one that I'll procure to come to thee,\nWhere and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\nAnd all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\nAnd follow thee my lord throughout the world.


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A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.\nLove goes toward love, as schoolboys from\ntheir books,\nBut love from love, toward school with heavy looks.


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Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,\nTo lure this tassel-gentle back again!\nBondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;\nElse would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\nAnd make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,\nWith repetition of my Romeo's name.


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It is my soul that calls upon my name:\nHow silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\nLike softest music to attending ears!


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'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:\nAnd yet no further than a wanton's bird;\nWho lets it hop a little from her hand,\nLike a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\nAnd with a silk thread plucks it back again,\nSo loving-jealous of his liberty.


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Sweet, so would I:\nYet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\nGood night, good night! parting is such\nsweet sorrow,\nThat I shall say good night till it be morrow.


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Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\nWould I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\nHence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\nHis help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.


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The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,\nChequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,\nAnd flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\nFrom forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:\nNow, ere the sun advance his burning eye,\nThe day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\nI must up-fill this osier cage of ours\nWith baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\nThe earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;\nWhat is her burying grave that is her womb,\nAnd from her womb children of divers kind\nWe sucking on her natural bosom find,\nMany for many virtues excellent,\nNone but for some and yet all different.\nO, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\nIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:\nFor nought so vile that on the earth doth live\nBut to the earth some special good doth give,\nNor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use\nRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:\nVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;\nAnd vice sometimes by action dignified.\nWithin the infant rind of this small flower\nPoison hath residence and medicine power:\nFor this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\nBeing tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\nTwo such opposed kings encamp them still\nIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;\nAnd where the worser is predominant,\nFull soon the canker death eats up that plant.


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Benedicite!\nWhat early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\nYoung son, it argues a distemper'd head\nSo soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:\nCare keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\nAnd where care lodges, sleep will never lie;\nBut where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\nDoth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:\nTherefore thy earliness doth me assure\nThou art up-roused by some distemperature;\nOr if not so, then here I hit it right,\nOur Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.


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I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.\nI have been feasting with mine enemy,\nWhere on a sudden one hath wounded me,\nThat's by me wounded: both our remedies\nWithin thy help and holy physic lies:\nI bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\nMy intercession likewise steads my foe.


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Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set\nOn the fair daughter of rich Capulet:\nAs mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;\nAnd all combined, save what thou must combine\nBy holy marriage: when and where and how\nWe met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,\nI'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\nThat thou consent to marry us to-day.


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Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!\nIs Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,\nSo soon forsaken? young men's love then lies\nNot truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\nJesu Maria, what a deal of brine\nHath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\nHow much salt water thrown away in waste,\nTo season love, that of it doth not taste!\nThe sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\nThy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;\nLo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\nOf an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:\nIf e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,\nThou and these woes were all for Rosaline:\nAnd art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,\nWomen may fall, when there's no strength in men.


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I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now\nDoth grace for grace and love for love allow;\nThe other did not so.


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O, she knew well\nThy love did read by rote and could not spell.\nBut come, young waverer, come, go with me,\nIn one respect I'll thy assistant be;\nFor this alliance may so happy prove,\nTo turn your households' rancour to pure love.


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Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a\nwhite wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a\nlove-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the\nblind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to\nencounter Tybalt?


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More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is\nthe courageous captain of compliments. He fights as\nyou sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and\nproportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and\nthe third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk\nbutton, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the\nvery first house, of the first and second cause:\nah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the\nhai!


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The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting\nfantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,\na very good blade! a very tall man! a very good\nwhore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\ngrandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with\nthese strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these\nperdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,\nthat they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their\nbones, their bones!


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Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,\nhow art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers\nthat Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a\nkitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to\nbe-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;\nHelen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey\neye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior\nRomeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation\nto your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\nfairly last night.


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Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in\nsuch a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.


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Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast\nworn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it\nis worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.


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Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have\ndone, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of\nthy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:\nwas I with you there for the goose?


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I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added\nto the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.


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Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?\nnow art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art\nthou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:\nfor this drivelling love is like a great natural,\nthat runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.


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O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:\nfor I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and\nmeant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.


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By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'\nquoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I\nmay find the young Romeo?


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I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when\nyou have found him than he was when you sought him:\nI am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.


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No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,\nthat is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.\n[Sings]\nAn old hare hoar,\nAnd an old hare hoar,\nIs very good meat in lent\nBut a hare that is hoar\nIs too much for a score,\nWhen it hoars ere it be spent.\nRomeo, will you come to your father's? we'll\nto dinner, thither.


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A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,\nand will speak more in a minute than he will stand\nto in a month.


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An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him\ndown, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such\nJacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.\nScurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am\nnone of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by\ntoo, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?


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I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon\nshould quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare\ndraw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a\ngood quarrel, and the law on my side.


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Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about\nme quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:\nand as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you\nout; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:\nbut first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into\na fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross\nkind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman\nis young; and, therefore, if you should deal double\nwith her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered\nto any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.


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Bid her devise\nSome means to come to shrift this afternoon;\nAnd there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\nBe shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.


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And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:\nWithin this hour my man shall be with thee\nAnd bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;\nWhich to the high top-gallant of my joy\nMust be my convoy in the secret night.\nFarewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:\nFarewell; commend me to thy mistress.


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Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,\nLord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there\nis a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain\nlay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief\nsee a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her\nsometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer\nman; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks\nas pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not\nrosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?


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Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for\nthe--No; I know it begins with some other\nletter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of\nit, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\nto hear it.


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The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\nIn half an hour she promised to return.\nPerchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.\nO, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,\nWhich ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,\nDriving back shadows over louring hills:\nTherefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,\nAnd therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\nNow is the sun upon the highmost hill\nOf this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\nIs three long hours, yet she is not come.\nHad she affections and warm youthful blood,\nShe would be as swift in motion as a ball;\nMy words would bandy her to my sweet love,\nAnd his to me:\nBut old folks, many feign as they were dead;\nUnwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\nO God, she comes!\n[Enter Nurse and PETER]\nO honey nurse, what news?\nHast thou met with him? Send thy man away.


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Now, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\nThough news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\nIf good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\nBy playing it to me with so sour a face.


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I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:\nNay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.


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How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath\nTo say to me that thou art out of breath?\nThe excuse that thou dost make in this delay\nIs longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\nIs thy news good, or bad? answer to that;\nSay either, and I'll stay the circumstance:\nLet me be satisfied, is't good or bad?


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Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not\nhow to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his\nface be better than any man's, yet his leg excels\nall men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,\nthough they be not to be talked on, yet they are\npast compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,\nbut, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy\nways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?


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Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!\nIt beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\nMy back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!\nBeshrew your heart for sending me about,\nTo catch my death with jaunting up and down!


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I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\nSweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?


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Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a\ncourteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I\nwarrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?


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Where is my mother! why, she is within;\nWhere should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\nWhere is your mother?'


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O God's lady dear!\nAre you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;\nIs this the poultice for my aching bones?\nHenceforward do your messages yourself.


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Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\nThere stays a husband to make you a wife:\nNow comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,\nThey'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\nHie you to church; I must another way,\nTo fetch a ladder, by the which your love\nMust climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:\nI am the drudge and toil in your delight,\nBut you shall bear the burden soon at night.\nGo; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.


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Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,\nIt cannot countervail the exchange of joy\nThat one short minute gives me in her sight:\nDo thou but close our hands with holy words,\nThen love-devouring death do what he dare;\nIt is enough I may but call her mine.


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These violent delights have violent ends\nAnd in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\nWhich as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey\nIs loathsome in his own deliciousness\nAnd in the taste confounds the appetite:\nTherefore love moderately; long love doth so;\nToo swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\n[Enter JULIET]\nHere comes the lady: O, so light a foot\nWill ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:\nA lover may bestride the gossamer\nThat idles in the wanton summer air,\nAnd yet not fall; so light is vanity.


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Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\nBe heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more\nTo blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\nThis neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\nUnfold the imagined happiness that both\nReceive in either by this dear encounter.


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Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,\nBrags of his substance, not of ornament:\nThey are but beggars that can count their worth;\nBut my true love is grown to such excess\nI cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.


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Come, come with me, and we will make short work;\nFor, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\nTill holy church incorporate two in one.


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I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:\nThe day is hot, the Capulets abroad,\nAnd, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;\nFor now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.


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Thou art like one of those fellows that when he\nenters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword\nupon the table and says 'God send me no need of\nthee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws\nit on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.


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Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as\nany in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as\nsoon moody to be moved.


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Nay, an there were two such, we should have none\nshortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,\nthou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,\nor a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou\nwilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\nother reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what\neye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?\nThy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of\nmeat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as\nan egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a\nman for coughing in the street, because he hath\nwakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:\ndidst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing\nhis new doublet before Easter? with another, for\ntying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou\nwilt tutor me from quarrelling!


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An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man\nshould buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.


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Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an\nthou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but\ndiscords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall\nmake you dance. 'Zounds, consort!


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We talk here in the public haunt of men:\nEither withdraw unto some private place,\nAnd reason coldly of your grievances,\nOr else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.


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But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:\nMarry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;\nYour worship in that sense may call him 'man.'


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Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\nDoth much excuse the appertaining rage\nTo such a greeting: villain am I none;\nTherefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.


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I do protest, I never injured thee,\nBut love thee better than thou canst devise,\nTill thou shalt know the reason of my love:\nAnd so, good Capulet,--which name I tender\nAs dearly as my own,--be satisfied.


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O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\nAlla stoccata carries it away.\n[Draws]\nTybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?


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Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine\nlives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you\nshall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the\neight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher\nby the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your\nears ere it be out.


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Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\nGentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!\nTybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath\nForbidden bandying in Verona streets:\nHold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!


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No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a\nchurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for\nme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I\nam peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'\nboth your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a\ncat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a\nrogue, a villain, that fights by the book of\narithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I\nwas hurt under your arm.


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Help me into some house, Benvolio,\nOr I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\nThey have made worms' meat of me: I have it,\nAnd soundly too: your houses!


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This gentleman, the prince's near ally,\nMy very friend, hath got his mortal hurt\nIn my behalf; my reputation stain'd\nWith Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour\nHath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,\nThy beauty hath made me effeminate\nAnd in my temper soften'd valour's steel!


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O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\nThat gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,\nWhich too untimely here did scorn the earth.


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Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!\nAway to heaven, respective lenity,\nAnd fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!\n[Re-enter TYBALT]\nNow, Tybalt, take the villain back again,\nThat late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\nIs but a little way above our heads,\nStaying for thine to keep him company:\nEither thou, or I, or both, must go with him.


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Romeo, away, be gone!\nThe citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\nStand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,\nIf thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!


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Up, sir, go with me;\nI charge thee in the princes name, obey.\n[Enter Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their]\nWives, and others]


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O noble prince, I can discover all\nThe unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:\nThere lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\nThat slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.


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Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\nO prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt\nO my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\nFor blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.\nO cousin, cousin!


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Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;\nRomeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink\nHow nice the quarrel was, and urged withal\nYour high displeasure: all this uttered\nWith gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,\nCould not take truce with the unruly spleen\nOf Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\nWith piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,\nWho all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\nAnd, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\nCold death aside, and with the other sends\nIt back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,\nRetorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,\n'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than\nhis tongue,\nHis agile arm beats down their fatal points,\nAnd 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\nAn envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\nOf stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\nBut by and by comes back to Romeo,\nWho had but newly entertain'd revenge,\nAnd to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I\nCould draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.\nAnd, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\nThis is the truth, or let Benvolio die.


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He is a kinsman to the Montague;\nAffection makes him false; he speaks not true:\nSome twenty of them fought in this black strife,\nAnd all those twenty could but kill one life.\nI beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;\nRomeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.


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Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;\nHis fault concludes but what the law should end,\nThe life of Tybalt.


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And for that offence\nImmediately we do exile him hence:\nI have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\nMy blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\nBut I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\nThat you shall all repent the loss of mine:\nI will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\nNor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:\nTherefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,\nElse, when he's found, that hour is his last.\nBear hence this body and attend our will:\nMercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.


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Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\nTowards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner\nAs Phaethon would whip you to the west,\nAnd bring in cloudy night immediately.\nSpread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\nThat runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo\nLeap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.\nLovers can see to do their amorous rites\nBy their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\nIt best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\nThou sober-suited matron, all in black,\nAnd learn me how to lose a winning match,\nPlay'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:\nHood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\nWith thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,\nThink true love acted simple modesty.\nCome, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\nFor thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\nWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.\nCome, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,\nGive me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\nTake him and cut him out in little stars,\nAnd he will make the face of heaven so fine\nThat all the world will be in love with night\nAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.\nO, I have bought the mansion of a love,\nBut not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,\nNot yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day\nAs is the night before some festival\nTo an impatient child that hath new robes\nAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\nAnd she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\nBut Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\n[Enter Nurse, with cords]\nNow, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\nThat Romeo bid thee fetch?


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Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\nWe are undone, lady, we are undone!\nAlack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!


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What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?\nThis torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\nHath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'\nAnd that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\nThan the death-darting eye of cockatrice:\nI am not I, if there be such an I;\nOr those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'\nIf he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:\nBrief sounds determine of my weal or woe.


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I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--\nGod save the mark!--here on his manly breast:\nA piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\nPale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\nAll in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.


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O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!\nTo prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!\nVile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;\nAnd thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!


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O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\nO courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!\nThat ever I should live to see thee dead!


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What storm is this that blows so contrary?\nIs Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?\nMy dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?\nThen, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\nFor who is living, if those two are gone?


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O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!\nDid ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\nBeautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\nDove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\nDespised substance of divinest show!\nJust opposite to what thou justly seem'st,\nA damned saint, an honourable villain!\nO nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,\nWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\nIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh?\nWas ever book containing such vile matter\nSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell\nIn such a gorgeous palace!


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There's no trust,\nNo faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,\nAll forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\nAh, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:\nThese griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\nShame come to Romeo!


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Blister'd be thy tongue\nFor such a wish! he was not born to shame:\nUpon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;\nFor 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\nSole monarch of the universal earth.\nO, what a beast was I to chide at him!


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Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\nAh, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,\nWhen I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\nBut, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\nThat villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:\nBack, foolish tears, back to your native spring;\nYour tributary drops belong to woe,\nWhich you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\nMy husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\nAnd Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:\nAll this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\nSome word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\nThat murder'd me: I would forget it fain;\nBut, O, it presses to my memory,\nLike damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:\n'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'\nThat 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\nHath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\nWas woe enough, if it had ended there:\nOr, if sour woe delights in fellowship\nAnd needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\nWhy follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\nThy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\nWhich modern lamentations might have moved?\nBut with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,\n'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,\nIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\nAll slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'\nThere is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\nIn that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\nWhere is my father, and my mother, nurse?


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Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,\nWhen theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\nTake up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,\nBoth you and I; for Romeo is exiled:\nHe made you for a highway to my bed;\nBut I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\nCome, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;\nAnd death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!


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Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo\nTo comfort you: I wot well where he is.\nHark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:\nI'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.


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Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:\nAffliction is enamour'd of thy parts,\nAnd thou art wedded to calamity.


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Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?\nWhat sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,\nThat I yet know not?


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Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'\nFor exile hath more terror in his look,\nMuch more than death: do not say 'banishment.'


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There is no world without Verona walls,\nBut purgatory, torture, hell itself.\nHence-banished is banish'd from the world,\nAnd world's exile is death: then banished,\nIs death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,\nThou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,\nAnd smilest upon the stroke that murders me.


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O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\nThy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,\nTaking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\nAnd turn'd that black word death to banishment:\nThis is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.


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'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,\nWhere Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\nAnd little mouse, every unworthy thing,\nLive here in heaven and may look on her;\nBut Romeo may not: more validity,\nMore honourable state, more courtship lives\nIn carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize\nOn the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\nAnd steal immortal blessing from her lips,\nWho even in pure and vestal modesty,\nStill blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\nBut Romeo may not; he is banished:\nFlies may do this, but I from this must fly:\nThey are free men, but I am banished.\nAnd say'st thou yet that exile is not death?\nHadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\nNo sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\nBut 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?\nO friar, the damned use that word in hell;\nHowlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,\nBeing a divine, a ghostly confessor,\nA sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\nTo mangle me with that word 'banished'?


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I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:\nAdversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\nTo comfort thee, though thou art banished.


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Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\nUnless philosophy can make a Juliet,\nDisplant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\nIt helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.


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Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:\nWert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\nAn hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\nDoting like me and like me banished,\nThen mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\nAnd fall upon the ground, as I do now,\nTaking the measure of an unmade grave.


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Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\nThou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;\n[Knocking]\nRun to my study. By and by! God's will,\nWhat simpleness is this! I come, I come!\n[Knocking]\nWho knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?


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O, he is even in my mistress' case,\nJust in her case! O woful sympathy!\nPiteous predicament! Even so lies she,\nBlubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\nStand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:\nFor Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;\nWhy should you fall into so deep an O?


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Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?\nDoth she not think me an old murderer,\nNow I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\nWith blood removed but little from her own?\nWhere is she? and how doth she? and what says\nMy conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?


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O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\nAnd now falls on her bed; and then starts up,\nAnd Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\nAnd then down falls again.


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As if that name,\nShot from the deadly level of a gun,\nDid murder her; as that name's cursed hand\nMurder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\nIn what vile part of this anatomy\nDoth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack\nThe hateful mansion.


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Hold thy desperate hand:\nArt thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:\nThy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote\nThe unreasonable fury of a beast:\nUnseemly woman in a seeming man!\nOr ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\nThou hast amazed me: by my holy order,\nI thought thy disposition better temper'd.\nHast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?\nAnd stay thy lady too that lives in thee,\nBy doing damned hate upon thyself?\nWhy rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\nSince birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet\nIn thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\nFie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;\nWhich, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\nAnd usest none in that true use indeed\nWhich should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:\nThy noble shape is but a form of wax,\nDigressing from the valour of a man;\nThy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\nKilling that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\nThy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\nMisshapen in the conduct of them both,\nLike powder in a skitless soldier's flask,\nIs set afire by thine own ignorance,\nAnd thou dismember'd with thine own defence.\nWhat, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,\nFor whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;\nThere art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,\nBut thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:\nThe law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend\nAnd turns it to exile; there art thou happy:\nA pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;\nHappiness courts thee in her best array;\nBut, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,\nThou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:\nTake heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\nGo, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\nAscend her chamber, hence and comfort her:\nBut look thou stay not till the watch be set,\nFor then thou canst not pass to Mantua;\nWhere thou shalt live, till we can find a time\nTo blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\nBeg pardon of the prince, and call thee back\nWith twenty hundred thousand times more joy\nThan thou went'st forth in lamentation.\nGo before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;\nAnd bid her hasten all the house to bed,\nWhich heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:\nRomeo is coming.


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O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\nTo hear good counsel: O, what learning is!\nMy lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.


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Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\nEither be gone before the watch be set,\nOr by the break of day disguised from hence:\nSojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,\nAnd he shall signify from time to time\nEvery good hap to you that chances here:\nGive me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.


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Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,\nThat we have had no time to move our daughter:\nLook you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\nAnd so did I:--Well, we were born to die.\n'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:\nI promise you, but for your company,\nI would have been a-bed an hour ago.


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Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\nOf my child's love: I think she will be ruled\nIn all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.\nWife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\nAcquaint her here of my son Paris' love;\nAnd bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--\nBut, soft! what day is this?


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Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,\nO' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,\nShe shall be married to this noble earl.\nWill you be ready? do you like this haste?\nWe'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;\nFor, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\nIt may be thought we held him carelessly,\nBeing our kinsman, if we revel much:\nTherefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\nAnd there an end. But what say you to Thursday?


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Well get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.\nGo you to Juliet ere you go to bed,\nPrepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.\nFarewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!\nAfore me! it is so very very late,\nThat we may call it early by and by.\nGood night.


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Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:\nIt was the nightingale, and not the lark,\nThat pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;\nNightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:\nBelieve me, love, it was the nightingale.


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It was the lark, the herald of the morn,\nNo nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks\nDo lace the severing clouds in yonder east:\nNight's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\nStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\nI must be gone and live, or stay and die.


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Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:\nIt is some meteor that the sun exhales,\nTo be to thee this night a torch-bearer,\nAnd light thee on thy way to Mantua:\nTherefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.


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Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;\nI am content, so thou wilt have it so.\nI'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\nNor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat\nThe vaulty heaven so high above our heads:\nI have more care to stay than will to go:\nCome, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\nHow is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.


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It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!\nIt is the lark that sings so out of tune,\nStraining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\nSome say the lark makes sweet division;\nThis doth not so, for she divideth us:\nSome say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,\nO, now I would they had changed voices too!\nSince arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\nHunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,\nO, now be gone; more light and light it grows.


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Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!\nI must hear from thee every day in the hour,\nFor in a minute there are many days:\nO, by this count I shall be much in years\nEre I again behold my Romeo!


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O God, I have an ill-divining soul!\nMethinks I see thee, now thou art below,\nAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb:\nEither my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.


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O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:\nIf thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.\nThat is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;\nFor then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,\nBut send him back.


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Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?\nIs she not down so late, or up so early?\nWhat unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?


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Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?\nWhat, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\nAn if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;\nTherefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;\nBut much of grief shows still some want of wit.


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Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,\nAs that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.


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[Aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.--\nGod Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;\nAnd yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.


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We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:\nThen weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\nWhere that same banish'd runagate doth live,\nShall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,\nThat he shall soon keep Tybalt company:\nAnd then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.


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Indeed, I never shall be satisfied\nWith Romeo, till I behold him--dead--\nIs my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.\nMadam, if you could find out but a man\nTo bear a poison, I would temper it;\nThat Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\nSoon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\nTo hear him named, and cannot come to him.\nTo wreak the love I bore my cousin\nUpon his body that slaughter'd him!


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Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\nOne who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\nHath sorted out a sudden day of joy,\nThat thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.


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Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,\nThe gallant, young and noble gentleman,\nThe County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\nShall happily make thee there a joyful bride.


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Now, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,\nHe shall not make me there a joyful bride.\nI wonder at this haste; that I must wed\nEre he, that should be husband, comes to woo.\nI pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,\nI will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,\nIt shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\nRather than Paris. These are news indeed!


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When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;\nBut for the sunset of my brother's son\nIt rains downright.\nHow now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?\nEvermore showering? In one little body\nThou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;\nFor still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\nDo ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,\nSailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;\nWho, raging with thy tears, and they with them,\nWithout a sudden calm, will overset\nThy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!\nHave you deliver'd to her our decree?


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Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\nHow! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?\nIs she not proud? doth she not count her blest,\nUnworthy as she is, that we have wrought\nSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?


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Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:\nProud can I never be of what I hate;\nBut thankful even for hate, that is meant love.


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How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?\n'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'\nAnd yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,\nThank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,\nBut fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,\nTo go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\nOr I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\nOut, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!\nYou tallow-face!


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Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\nI tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,\nOr never after look me in the face:\nSpeak not, reply not, do not answer me;\nMy fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\nThat God had lent us but this only child;\nBut now I see this one is one too much,\nAnd that we have a curse in having her:\nOut on her, hilding!


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God's bread! it makes me mad:\nDay, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,\nAlone, in company, still my care hath been\nTo have her match'd: and having now provided\nA gentleman of noble parentage,\nOf fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\nStuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\nProportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;\nAnd then to have a wretched puling fool,\nA whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\nTo answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,\nI am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'\nBut, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:\nGraze where you will you shall not house with me:\nLook to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.\nThursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\nAn you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\nAnd you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in\nthe streets,\nFor, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\nNor what is mine shall never do thee good:\nTrust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.


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Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,\nThat sees into the bottom of my grief?\nO, sweet my mother, cast me not away!\nDelay this marriage for a month, a week;\nOr, if you do not, make the bridal bed\nIn that dim monument where Tybalt lies.


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O God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\nMy husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;\nHow shall that faith return again to earth,\nUnless that husband send it me from heaven\nBy leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.\nAlack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\nUpon so soft a subject as myself!\nWhat say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?\nSome comfort, nurse.


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Faith, here it is.\nRomeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,\nThat he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\nOr, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\nThen, since the case so stands as now it doth,\nI think it best you married with the county.\nO, he's a lovely gentleman!\nRomeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,\nHath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\nAs Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\nI think you are happy in this second match,\nFor it excels your first: or if it did not,\nYour first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,\nAs living here and you no use of him.


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Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\nGo in: and tell my lady I am gone,\nHaving displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,\nTo make confession and to be absolved.


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Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\nIs it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\nOr to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\nWhich she hath praised him with above compare\nSo many thousand times? Go, counsellor;\nThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\nI'll to the friar, to know his remedy:\nIf all else fail, myself have power to die.


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Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\nAnd therefore have I little talk'd of love;\nFor Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\nNow, sir, her father counts it dangerous\nThat she doth give her sorrow so much sway,\nAnd in his wisdom hastes our marriage,\nTo stop the inundation of her tears;\nWhich, too much minded by herself alone,\nMay be put from her by society:\nNow do you know the reason of this haste.


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[Aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.\nLook, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.


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It may be so, for it is not mine own.\nAre you at leisure, holy father, now;\nOr shall I come to you at evening mass?


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God shield I should disturb devotion!\nJuliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:\nTill then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.


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Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\nIt strains me past the compass of my wits:\nI hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\nOn Thursday next be married to this county.


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Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\nUnless thou tell me how I may prevent it:\nIf, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,\nDo thou but call my resolution wise,\nAnd with this knife I'll help it presently.\nGod join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\nAnd ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,\nShall be the label to another deed,\nOr my true heart with treacherous revolt\nTurn to another, this shall slay them both:\nTherefore, out of thy long-experienced time,\nGive me some present counsel, or, behold,\n'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\nShall play the umpire, arbitrating that\nWhich the commission of thy years and art\nCould to no issue of true honour bring.\nBe not so long to speak; I long to die,\nIf what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.


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Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,\nWhich craves as desperate an execution.\nAs that is desperate which we would prevent.\nIf, rather than to marry County Paris,\nThou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\nThen is it likely thou wilt undertake\nA thing like death to chide away this shame,\nThat copest with death himself to scape from it:\nAnd, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.


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O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\nFrom off the battlements of yonder tower;\nOr walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk\nWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;\nOr shut me nightly in a charnel-house,\nO'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\nWith reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\nOr bid me go into a new-made grave\nAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud;\nThings that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;\nAnd I will do it without fear or doubt,\nTo live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.


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Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent\nTo marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:\nTo-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\nLet not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:\nTake thou this vial, being then in bed,\nAnd this distilled liquor drink thou off;\nWhen presently through all thy veins shall run\nA cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse\nShall keep his native progress, but surcease:\nNo warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\nThe roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\nTo paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,\nLike death, when he shuts up the day of life;\nEach part, deprived of supple government,\nShall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:\nAnd in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death\nThou shalt continue two and forty hours,\nAnd then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\nNow, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\nTo rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:\nThen, as the manner of our country is,\nIn thy best robes uncover'd on the bier\nThou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\nWhere all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\nIn the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\nShall Romeo by my letters know our drift,\nAnd hither shall he come: and he and I\nWill watch thy waking, and that very night\nShall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\nAnd this shall free thee from this present shame;\nIf no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,\nAbate thy valour in the acting it.


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Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous\nIn this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed\nTo Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.


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So many guests invite as here are writ.\n[Exit First Servant]\nSirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.


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Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his\nown fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his\nfingers goes not with me.


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Go, be gone.\n[Exit Second Servant]\nWe shall be much unfurnished for this time.\nWhat, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?


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Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin\nOf disobedient opposition\nTo you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\nBy holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,\nAnd beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!\nHenceforward I am ever ruled by you.


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I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;\nAnd gave him what becomed love I might,\nNot step o'er the bounds of modesty.


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Why, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:\nThis is as't should be. Let me see the county;\nAy, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\nNow, afore God! this reverend holy friar,\nOur whole city is much bound to him.


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Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,\nTo help me sort such needful ornaments\nAs you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?


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Tush, I will stir about,\nAnd all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:\nGo thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;\nI'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;\nI'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\nThey are all forth. Well, I will walk myself\nTo County Paris, to prepare him up\nAgainst to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,\nSince this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.


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Ay, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,\nI pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,\nFor I have need of many orisons\nTo move the heavens to smile upon my state,\nWhich, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.


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No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\nAs are behoveful for our state to-morrow:\nSo please you, let me now be left alone,\nAnd let the nurse this night sit up with you;\nFor, I am sure, you have your hands full all,\nIn this so sudden business.


