Tales from Shakespeare

Preface

I^yi OTHING could better testify to the peren- 1 >l nial charm of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakspeare than the fact that during the eighty-six years between the issue of the first edition in 1807 and the present time there have been put forth more than fifty editions, and that each year brings a new contribution to the store.

In their sincere and simple preface the brother and sister, now grown so famous, said that their chief aim was to provide an introduction to the study of Shakspeare for the young reader ; but this purpose was carried out by them with such delicate art and critical insight that the group of plays intended for children have become the treasured resource of students, as well as an elevated pleasure for readers to whom books are an enjoyment pure and simple.

Owing perhaps to the wishes of their publisher, who desired to include an equal and limited number of plays in each of the small original volumes, or from some other practical difficulty, or as a matter of personal taste, Charles and Mary Lamb treated only twenty of the thirty-six plays of Shak-

VI PREFACE.

speare, leaving sixteen others which have not until the present time been rendered into prose.

While of a necessity these sixteen additional plays, included in the present volume, must come into comparison with the inimitable tales of Elia and his gifted sister, yet the writer trusts that his purpose may not be misapprehended ; and he asks to be freed from the charge of inviting such a contrast, or of deeming his imperfect continuation as in any wise worthy of a place beside the versions made by Charles and Mary Lamb. Far from desiring to put himself in so unenviable a light, he hastens to forestall such an inference by avowing that the aim with which the continuation has been made is the same which inspired the first project, — a wish to provide the means for readers, old and young, to gain a knowledge of Shakspeare while from lack of time or training they are not able to find their way through the ''wild poetic garden" for themselves. Coupled with this was the desire to supplement the uncompleted work, not with tales the equal of the originals in grace, wisdom, or critical penetration, but with such as at least might be accepted as a help to that part of Shakspeare, and no unimportant part it is, left untouched by the earlier authors.

In undertaking such a task, the veneration felt for the well-loved brother and sister — and perhaps a sense of the humour of the situation, which none would have relished more quickly than they — was not the only deterring influence. With their

PREFACE. VU

wise foresight and sense of the fitness of things, having twenty plays of Shakspeare to abridge, they chose those in all respects adapted to their purpose, and omitted just such examples as were most difficult to turn into intelligible prose versions. Says Canon Ainger, the best and most sympathetic editor of Lamb, * ' The whole series of English histories is left unattempted, as well as the Roman plays ; and of the few that remain, ' Love's Labour's Lost' is the only one the reason for whose omission is not quite obvious. ' '

This, then, will serve to show under what difficulties the additional tales, forming the present volume, have been turned into prose. To bring. Falstaff, the chartered libertine of Elizabethan slang, into juvenile phrase ; to weave the broken dramatic scenes of the Wars of the Roses into even-pacing narrative ; and to conquer the heroic periods of the unconquerable Romans, is a task beset with difficulties ; • and if the adventurer in this untried field has succeeded so far as to make acceptable reductions of these immortal dramas, he has but to reckon with the shades of Elia and of Bridget Elia, and with the mightier phantom of Shakspeare, to whose benign mercies he trusts his readers will consent to leave him.

H. S. M.

Philadelphia, 1892.

CONTENTS, VOLUME I.

PAGB

King Richard IL ^ . 99

King Henry IV. — Part 1 123

IX

ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME L

PAGB

The Merry Wives of Windsor . . . Frontispiece.

y King John 75

^' King Henry IV. — Part 1 123

XI

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

IT was the pleasant whim of the king of Navarre and his friends, the Lords Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, to vow one day that they would devote themselves to study for three years and see no woman during all that time. Their court, said the king, should be a little Academe, and Navarre the wonder of the world, for they would war against their affections and desires and live a contemplative life.

When the time came for subscribing their names to this agreement, Longaville and Dumain were ready to do it without delay; but Biron held out, being of a gallant nature and loving the company of ladies, as secretly did all the rest, and was for argument and amendment of the plan. He was willing, he said, to live secluded and study for three years; but there were other strict observances, such as not to see a woman during that term; not to touch food on one day in each week; to take but one meal every day, and to sleep only three hours in the night, yet not be seen to wink through the morning. These things he said he wished might not be enrolled in the bond, for they were barren tasks and too hard to keep.

The king made answer that Biron's oath was already passed, but the reluctant lord replied that he had sworn to no conditions, saving only to study and stay three years in the court.

Then the others in chorus vowed that he had sworn to all the conditions, but he held that it was only in jest. "What, after all, is the end of study ?' ' asked Biron. ' ' To know that which else you should not know," answered the king.

At this the gay Lord Biron turned the subject, which was growing serious, with a jest, and said he would study, then, the things he was forbidden to know, as where he might dine well when he was expressly bidden to fast; or where to meet some lady when he was denied her company; or, having sworn to a crabbed oath, study how to break it. * ' Swear me to this, ' ' quoth he, ' ' and I will never say no."

He would not listen to the chiding of the king, but railed on pleasantly, like the merry-hearted gentleman he was. * * Study, ' ' he said, * ' is like the heaven's glorious sun, that will not be searched by saucy glances; and, moreover, continual plodders have won little enough from their books saving base authority. The earthly godfathers that give the names to the stars have no more profit from their shining than common folk that do not know what they are. To know too much is to get nothing but fame, which is cheap enough, since every godfather can give it."

Hereupon the three others began to rally Biron for his show of the very knowledge he mocked at; but he held his own in the passage of wit, and at last the king was forced to cry, ' * Well, go home, then, Biron, if you will. Adieu !" and was for bowing him out of the compact. But here the true-heartedness of Biron showed itself through his gaiety, for he said, * ' No, my good lord ; I have sworn to stay with you, and, though I have spoken more for barbarism than you can say for the angel knowledge, yet I'll keep my oath and bide the penance." He took the paper and began to read it aloud:

''Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court, on pain of losing her tongue.

"Item, If any man be seen to walk with a woman within the term of three years he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court shall possibly devise."

Here, looking up, Biron said to the king, ** My liege, you must break this article yourself, for well you know that the French king's daughter comes here in embassy to speak with you about the surrender of Aquitain to her bed-ridden father."

Biron now enjoyed a merry triumph, for the king was in dismay. The visit of the princess had been forgotten, but her mission was of too much importance to be put aside. The king was for dispensing with his decree and entertaining her within his court on the plea of necessity; but Biron took advantage of his weakness, quickly signed the bond, and proclaimed, mockingly, that if he were ever forsworn it would be purely from necessity.

While all this was happening the princess approached the court of Navarre and sent forward her courtier, Boyet, to tell the king of her arrival. She had in her train, besides this gallant gentleman, the ladies Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine, — all light of heart and nimble of wit, — and with these and the other lords of her household she gossiped of the king of Navarre and his friends until Boyet' s return. He came back presently with the information that the king had received notice of her approach and was well addressed to meet her, but that he meant to lodge her in the fields rather than seek a dispensation of his oath.

As Boyet was telling this to his mistress, the king drew near and welcomed her warmly to his court of Navarre. She haughtily gave him back his fair words, and, as for welcome, she said she had yet found none, for the roof of the court of open air under which they stood was too high to be his, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be hers. This twinged the king shrewdly, and he hastened to offer her welcome to his proper court; upon which she asked him to conduct her thither. Then he told her of his oath, which she pretended to be ignorant of, and she fell to rallying him and was much vexed, asking that he suddenly give his decision in her suit and let her go.

LOVES LABOUR S LOST. JLi

While the king was reading the paper which the princess now gave him, his friends mingled with the ladies, and each found his match in wit; but when Navarre had finished the paper, he hushed their banter by some grave words to the princess. ''Madam," he said, "your father here intimates the payment of a hundred thousand crowns, which is but the one-half of an entire sum disbursed by my father in his wars. But say that we have received that amount, though we have not, there yet remains unpaid another hundred thousand, in surety of which one part of Aquitain is bound to us, although it is not valued at the money's worth. If, then, your father, the king, will restore a half of what is unsatisfied, we will give up our right in Aquitain, and hold fair friendship with him. But it seems he does not purpose even this, for here he demands to have a hundred thousand pounds repaid, and to leave Aquitain in our possession, which we had much rather give up and have back the money lent by our father. ' '

Following this, the king said some courtly words to the princess ; but she resented his words about her father and insisted that the sum he demanded had been paid. This Navarre professed never to have heard of, but he said if she could prove it he would pay it back or yield up Aquitain.

The princess quickly took him at his word and appealed to Boyet to produce acquittances from the king's father for such a sum. Boyet told her that the package wherein that and other specialties were bound had not come, but that to-morrow she should have a sight of it. Hereupon the king said he would wait, and in the mean time offered such welcome as he could, without breach of honour, tender to her. ' ' You may not come within my gates, fair princess," said he, ''but here without you shall be so received as you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart." Then the king and his attendants bade the ladies farewell and parted for the court, but not without a passage of wit between the ladies attendant on the princess and the gay courtiers of Navarre.

Now, there was one other who had taken the king's oath of a three years' studious life. He had been chosen because of his droll and fantastic humours. He was described by the king as a refined traveller from Spain, a man planted in the world's newest fashion, who had a mint of phrases in his brain. He was, in truth, one who was ravished by the music of his own vain tongue. This was Don Adriano de Armado, and he was welcomed into the fellowship of study because, as the king said, he might relate the worth of many a knight from tawny Spain, and thus he with Costard the swain could make them sport when they desired it in their solitude.

It happened that Armado had by the king's command placed Costard in durance because of his unlawful conduct with Jaquenetta, a country wench. But Don Armado, in his turn, had also become enamoured of Jaquenetta and he determined to employ Costard to bear a letter to her. For this service he gave the swain his liberty and sent him on his way.

Before very long Costard was met by Lord Biron, who also employed him to deliver a sealedup letter, which he explained was for Rosaline, who might be overtaken when she came to the park to hunt on that afternoon. Costard took his guerdon and went onward, but Biron lingered under the trees and reproached himself, — he that had been love's whip, a very beadle to a humorous sigh, a critic ; nay, a night-watch constable ; a domineering pedant over Cupid — he to be in love! "What," quoth he, " I love! I sue! I seek a wife! a woman like a German clock, still repairing, ever out of frame, and never going aright! Nay, but to be perjured is worst of all, and among three to love the worst of all!" Then he fell to reviling his lady-love in playful bitterness, but he was past cure, for Cupid had, in very truth, in return for his neglect, imposed a plague which there was no escaping.

At the time appointed by the king, who desired to entertain his guests as best he could while still remaining true to his oath, the princess and her retinue were led abroad by one of the royal foresters to a hunt in the park; and, as Biron had directed. Costard followed the train and attempted to deliver Biron' s letter to the lady Rosaline. He asked the princess, with a loutish bow, which was the head lady; and, as she said she was, he announced that he had a letter from one Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline. Hereupon the princess demanded the letter, and it was handed to Boyet, who, looking at the superscription, said, * * This letter is mistook. It importeth none here. It is writ to Jaquenetta ;' ' for the silly swain had delivered Don Armado's letter instead of Lord Biron' s. The princess commanded that the wax be broken; and the Spanish don's letter, full of hard words and bombastic phrases, was read amid peals of laughter.

Then the princess called Costard: **Thou fellow, a word: Who gave thee this letter?" The swain answered that my lord had given it to him, and that it was from my lord to my lady. * * From which lord to which lady?" said the princess. ** From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, to a lady of France that he called Rosaline. " * * Thou hast mistaken his letter," said the princess, and she and her train rode gaily away.

Strolling through the park after them came Jaquenetta and Costard, who were overtaken by two men very learned in their own conceit, — namely, Holofernes, a schoolmaster, and Sir Nathaniel, a curate, with whom was Dull, the constable, Jaquenetta interrupted the pompous discourse of these two and asked the parson to be so good as to read her a letter which she held forth to him. It was given her by Costard, she said, and was sent her from Don Armatho, as she miscalled her Spanish suitor.

love's labour's lost. i$

Sir Nathaniel, urged by Holofernes, began to ,read the letter aloud, which was really that of Lord Biron to Rosaline. It was in verse, and breathed a great love to that lady, calling her by many endearing names. ' * But, damosella virgin," asked Holofernes, in his high-flown speech, ' * was this directed to you ?' ' Jaquenetta answered that it was; but upon looking at the superscription, Holofernes found the true address: "To the snowwhite hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline," and, turning to Jaquenetta, he bade her go deliver it into the hands of the king, for, seeing that Lord Biron had entered into compact with the king for three years' withdrawal from womankind, it might concern him much. Taking Costard with her, Jaquenetta thereupon hurried away, and the two pedants strolled on in fantastical converse.

After all these were gone, Biron came through the trees with a paper in his hand, much berating himself for having, in self-despite, fallen madly in love. "By the world," he muttered, "I would not care a pin if the other three were in," for this was his only hope of escape from his hard bargain. But at that moment he saw one of his vow-fellows coming forward, also with a paper in his hand. To conceal his own embarrassment, and secretly to learn, at the same time, what had happened to the king, for it was he who approached, Biron climbed into a tree and screened himself among its thick leaves. "Ah, me!" sighed the melancholy king, and Lord Biron, in his high perchj whispered to himself, with inward satisfaction, ''Shot, by Heaven!"

The king then began to read aloud a set of verses made to a lady whose beauty he placed above the sun and moon; but, alas! she would still make him weep. He was about to drop the paper, addressed to the princess, in the hope that she would find it, when he heard a footstep on the grass near to him, and stepped aside with his poem still in his hand.

Just as the king disappeared in the deep shade of the trees, Longaville came through the trunks, reading aloud to himself. Biron above, among the leaves, mocked at them both under his breath and was mightily pleased to find his forlorn hope thus coming true. As Longaville reproached himself for his faithlessness to his fellows, Biron and the king, unknown to each other, interjected their comment between his words, each after his own mood, for the king was sad at the miscarriage of his plan, but Biron, as usual, appeared to take it in a merry spirit.

Longaville now read his verses aloud, which assured the fair lady that in addressing her he did not break his vow to forswear women, as she was a goddess. His vow was earthly, but she was a heavenly love. "What fool," he said, "is not wise enough to lose an oath in order to win a paradise ?"

As Longaville finished this plausible piece of logic, and was wondering how he should send the missive to the lady it celebrated, forward came Dumain, also with a paper in his hand and also in the musing mien of a lover. Longaville stepped hastily aside when he saw his fellowcourtier, and he also in turn became an eavesdropper. Biron from his perch laughed in his sleeve at them and thought how like it was to the old infant play of ' * All hid, ' ' while he sat in the sky like a demi-god, knowing the secrets of all the wretched fools below him.

Dumain exclaimed, with a great sigh, *' O most divine Kate!" and Biron in his glee answered, aside, ''O most profound coxcomb!" Dumain continued to call his chosen lady by all sorts of fair names, as is the wont of lovers, and Biron mocked each sentence with some outlandish simile; but the others put in now and then a word of sympathy. At last Dumain began to read the ode he had been intent upon, and all were still, for it was one of the sweetest and archest of love-songs:

" On a day (alack the day !), Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom, passing fair, Playing in the wanton air.

Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, 'gan passage find ; That the lover, sick to death, Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow ; Air, would I might triumph so !

But, alack ! my hand is sworn Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn. III. — b 2*

Vow, alack ! for youth unmeet ; Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.

Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee : Thee for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were ; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love."

He ended with another sigh made up of satisfaction with his ode, of his hopeless suing, and of his pang for a broken vow ; then said he, "I will send this and something else more plain that shall express my true love's ardour. O, would," he exclaimed, "the king, Biron, and Longaville were lovers too!"

Longaville could stand the suspense no longer. He advanced from the shadow of the trees and roundly chided his friend. " Dumain," he said, ' ' your love is uncharitable that wants society in its grief You may look pale, but I should blush to be overheard and taken napping so."

At this the king stepped out and confronted Longaville, who was as much astonished to have been discovered as Dumain. ''Come, sir," said the king to Longaville, ' ' Blush yourself; your case is the same as his, and in chiding him you offend twice." Then he went mercilessly over the words of Longaville' s sonnet to Maria, and told at last how he had been closely shrouded in the bushes and had marked the actions of both and blushed for them. * ' What will Biron say, ' ' he continued, "when he hears of these broken pledges ? Think

LOVES LABOUR S LOST. IQ

how he will scorn you and spend his wit upon you! How he will triumph, and leap, and laugh at it! I would not have him know so much of me for all the wealth I ever saw!"

Biron now thought it was time to show himself. He descended from the tree where he had been in hiding, and straightway began to reproach the king. * ' Ah, good my liege, I pray pardon me, ' ' said he, with a dutiful bow; " but, good heart, what grace have you thus to reprove these worms for loving, who are yourself more in love than they ?' ' Then Biron, in turn, repeated all the conceits of the king's love-ditty, who was in dismay thus to be found out in the presence of those he had just condemned for committing his very fault.

Biron, knowing the state of his own heart, rejoiced at the opportunity to cover his default by reproving it in the others. He rallied them and gave them good advice by turns. * * O, what a scene of foolery, ' ' he cried, ' * of sighs, groans, sorrow, and tears ! Where does your grief lie, tell me, good Dumain? Where is your pain, gentle Longaville ; and where is my liege' s ? All about the breast A caudle, ho!"

* ' Your fun is too bitter, ' ' said the indignant king; but Biron ran on with laughter and mockery, asking at last, ''When did you ever know me to write a thing in rhyme? When did you ever hear me praise a hand, a foot, a face, or an eye ?' ' Yet like all who carry a jest beyond bounds, for none of us are without our faults, Biron' s banter at last brought him to shame. He was about to run away, still shaking his sides with laughter, when some one approached and he stopped an instant to learn who it was.

"God bless the king!" said Jaquenetta, for it was she and Costard, who had come to seek his majesty with Biron's verses, as Holofernes had recommended. Jaquenetta begged that the letter which she handed to the king should be in his presence read, for the parson misdoubted that it was treason. The king gave the paper to Biron and asked him to read it, meanwhile questioning where it had come from. Costard said he had had it from Don Armado, upon which the king noticed that Biron was destroying it. "How now ! what are you doing ? Why do you tear it ?' ' he asked abruptly. ' ' A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace need not be alarmed," was Biron's evasive reply ; but it stood him in little stead, for Longaville had noticed how the paper moved him to passion, and Dumain picked up one of the pieces with Biron's name written upon it. Then Biron fell to cursing Costard, who had been born, he said, to do him shame; and, fairly beaten, he cried, ' ' Guilty, my lord, guilty ; I confess, I confess!" "What?" asked the king. "That you three fools lacked me to make up the sum. We are all pick-purses in love, my liege, and deserve to die." Costard hereupon, with scorn for all traitors, passed on with Jaquenetta and left the nobles to their mutual explanations.

Biron and the king vied with one another in praise of their lady-loves until finally all fell to jeering at the choice of Biron, who defended his Rosaline like the gallant lover and wit he was. When they had pleasantly bantered each other thus for a long time, the king and the rest called upon Biron, in recognition of his nimble mind, to prove their loving to be lawful and their faith unbroken. This, in some noble words which showed him to be as deep in thought as he was light in converse, Biron quickly did after a manner which all approved. Then the four lovers ran off to prepare some sport for their mistresses, Biron gaily singing a song as they passed away under the trees.

In the mean time the ladies had assembled in the Park, near the pavilion of the princess, and had read the verses sent them by their ardent wooers. As they stood under the shade, laughing lightly over these, Boyet approached in his gayest mood and asked eagerly for the princess. When she appeared he told her how he had lain down for rest half an hour under the cool shade of a sycamore, and there had overheard the king and his companions plotting to come thither disguised as Russians and make trial of the affections of their chosen mistresses. They had also planned to send forward in advance a pretty knavish page, whom they had well taught what he was to say.

The ladies soon resolved that they would have a counter-device with which to meet the gallants. They straightway masked and changed favors, so that the king and his courtiers must each choose the wrong partner. They had hardly done this before the king's page came forward through the wood and hailed them as ' ' the richest beauties on the earth." This the ladies resented by turning their backs; but the page, who was quick in answers, made a happy retort, while Biron and the rest, who were behind him, urged him on to repeat the words they had taught him. Rosaline, disguised as the princess, and feigning not to know who these strangers were, asked Boyet to learn what they sought. They replied that they wanted nothing but peace and gentle visitation, upon which Rosaline bade them to be gone. The king told her, supposing her to be her royal mistress, that they had measured many miles for the favour of a dance on the grass with her and her companions; but she would and she would not, and finally they separated into pairs, the king going aside with Rosaline, Biron with the princess, Dumain with Maria, and Lorigaville with Katharine, each supposing he had found his own choice, and each meeting with a merry defiance, which finally drove them all away.

The ladies fell then to telling what the gallants had said, and the mirth ran high as their mistaken confessions of love were repeated. At last the princess asked what they should do if the lovers returned in their own shapes. Rosaline was for mocking them still by telling them how a band of fools had come there disguised like Russians, and that the princess and her ladles wondered what they were and to what end they had brought thither their shallow shows and vilely-penned prologue. Just as they had resolved on this course the gallants reappeared in their proper habits, and the ladies whipped into their tents to prepare to receive them anew.