Act IV, Scene II — Mytilene. A room in a brothel
Enter Pandar, Bawd and Boult.
PANDAR. Boult!
BOULT. Sir?
PANDAR. Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost too much money this mart by being too wenchless.
BAWD. We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action are even as good as rotten.
PANDAR. Therefore let’s have fresh ones, whate’er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper.
BAWD. Thou sayest true: ’tis not our bringing up of poor bastards,—as, I think, I have brought up some eleven—
BOULT. Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the market?
BAWD. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.
PANDAR. Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome, o’ conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.
BOULT. Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms. But I’ll go search the market.
[Exit.]
PANDAR. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give over.
BAWD. Why to give over, I pray you? Is it a shame to get when we are old?
PANDAR. O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the commodity wages not with the danger: therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some pretty estate, ’twere not amiss to keep our door hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods will be strong with us for giving over.
BAWD. Come, others sorts offend as well as we.
PANDAR. As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our profession any trade; it’s no calling. But here comes Boult.
Re-enter Boult, with the Pirates and Marina.
BOULT [To Pirates.] Come your ways. My masters, you say she’s a virgin?
FIRST PIRATE. O sir, we doubt it not.
BOULT. Master, I have gone through for this piece, you see: if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.
BAWD. Boult, has she any qualities?
BOULT. She has a good face, speaks well and has excellent good clothes: there’s no farther necessity of qualities can make her be refused.
BAWD. What is her price, Boult?
BOULT. I cannot be baited one doit of a thousand pieces.
PANDAR. Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment.
[Exeunt Pandar and Pirates.]
BAWD. Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair, complexion, height, her age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry ‘He that will give most shall have her first.’ Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you.
BOULT. Performance shall follow.
[Exit.]
MARINA. Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow! He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates, Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me For to seek my mother!
BAWD. Why lament you, pretty one?
MARINA. That I am pretty.
BAWD. Come, the gods have done their part in you.
MARINA. I accuse them not.
BAWD. You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.
MARINA. The more my fault To scape his hands where I was like to die.
BAWD. Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.
MARINA. No.
BAWD. Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do you stop your ears?
MARINA. Are you a woman?
BAWD. What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?
MARINA. An honest woman, or not a woman.
BAWD. Marry, whip the gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you.
MARINA. The gods defend me!
BAWD. If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men stir you up. Boult’s returned.
Re-enter Boult.
Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?
BOULT. I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice.
BAWD. And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort?
BOULT. Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their father’s testament. There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered, that he went to bed to her very description.
BAWD. We shall have him here tomorrow with his best ruff on.
BOULT. Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i’ the hams?
BAWD. Who, Monsieur Veroles?
BOULT. Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her tomorrow.
BAWD. Well, well, as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun.
BOULT. Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign.
[To Marina.] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.
MARINA. I understand you not.
BOULT. O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must be quenched with some present practice.
BAWD. Thou sayest true, i’faith so they must; for your bride goes to that with shame which is her way to go with warrant.
BOULT. Faith, some do and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint,—
BAWD. Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.
BOULT. I may so.
BAWD. Who should deny it? Come young one, I like the manner of your garments well.
BOULT. Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.
BAWD. Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have; you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report.
BOULT. I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stirs up the lewdly inclined. I’ll bring home some tonight.
BAWD. Come your ways; follow me.
MARINA. If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, Untied I still my virgin knot will keep. Diana, aid my purpose!
BAWD. What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene III — Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house
Enter Cleon and Dionyza.
DIONYZA. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?
CLEON. O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!
DIONYZA. I think you’ll turn a child again.
CLEON. Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady, Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess To equal any single crown o’ the earth I’ the justice of compare! O villain Leonine! Whom thou hast poison’d too: If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
DIONYZA. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, To foster it, nor ever to preserve. She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it? Unless you play the pious innocent, And for an honest attribute cry out ‘She died by foul play.’
CLEON. O, go to. Well, well, Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Do like this worst.
DIONYZA. Be one of those that thinks The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence, And open this to Pericles. I do shame To think of what a noble strain you are, And of how coward a spirit.
CLEON. To such proceeding Whoever but his approbation added, Though not his prime consent, he did not flow From honourable courses.
DIONYZA. Be it so, then: Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, Nor none can know, Leonine being gone. She did distain my child, and stood between Her and her fortunes: none would look on her, But cast their gazes on Marina’s face; Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through; And though you call my course unnatural, You not your child well loving, yet I find It greets me as an enterprise of kindness Perform’d to your sole daughter.
CLEON. Heavens forgive it!
DIONYZA. And as for Pericles, what should he say? We wept after her hearse, and yet we mourn. Her monument is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs In glittering golden characters express A general praise to her, and care in us At whose expense ’tis done.
CLEON. Thou art like the harpy, Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face, Seize with thine eagle’s talons.
DIONYZA. You are like one that superstitiously Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies: But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene IV
Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.
GOWER. Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short; Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for’t; Making, to take your imagination, From bourn to bourn, region to region. By you being pardon’d, we commit no crime To use one language in each several clime Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you To learn of me, who stand i’the gaps to teach you, The stages of our story. Pericles Is now again thwarting the wayward seas Attended on by many a lord and knight, To see his daughter, all his life’s delight. Old Helicanus goes along. Behind Is left to govern, if you bear in mind, Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late Advanced in time to great and high estate. Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought This king to Tarsus,—think his pilot thought; So with his steerage shall your thoughts go on,— To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone. Like motes and shadows see them move awhile; Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.
Dumb-show. Enter Pericles at one door with all his train; Cleon and Dionyza at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb; whereat Pericles makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth and in a mighty passion departs. Then exeunt Cleon and Dionyza.
See how belief may suffer by foul show; This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe; And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d, With sighs shot through; and biggest tears o’ershower’d, Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs: He puts on sackcloth, and to sea he bears A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears, And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit The epitaph is for Marina writ By wicked Dionyza.
[Reads the inscription on Marina’s monument.]
_The fairest, sweet’st, and best lies here, Who wither’d in her spring of year. She was of Tyrus the King’s daughter, On whom foul death hath made this slaughter; Marina was she call’d; and at her birth, Thetis, being proud, swallow’d some part o’ the earth: Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflow’d, Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestow’d: Wherefore she does, and swears she’ll never stint, Make raging battery upon shores of flint._
No visor does become black villany So well as soft and tender flattery. Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead, And bear his courses to be ordered By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play His daughter’s woe and heavy well-a-day In her unholy service. Patience, then, And think you now are all in Mytilene.
[Exit.]
Act IV, Scene V — Mytilene. A street before the brothel
Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.
FIRST GENTLEMAN. Did you ever hear the like?
SECOND GENTLEMAN. No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.
FIRST GENTLEMAN. But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing?
SECOND GENTLEMAN. No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy houses: shall’s go hear the vestals sing?
FIRST GENTLEMAN. I’ll do anything now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting for ever.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene VI — The same. A room in the brothel
Enter Pandar, Bawd and Boult.
PANDAR. Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne’er come here.
BAWD. Fie, fie upon her! She’s able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a whole generation. We must either get her ravished, or be rid of her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.
BOULT. Faith, I must ravish her, or she’ll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers, and make our swearers priests.
PANDAR. Now, the pox upon her green sickness for me!
BAWD. Faith, there’s no way to be rid on’t but by the way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.
BOULT. We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but give way to customers.
Enter Lysimachus.
LYSIMACHUS. How now! How a dozen of virginities?
BAWD. Now, the gods to bless your honour!
BOULT. I am glad to see your honour in good health.
LYSIMACHUS. You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now? Wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?
BAWD. We have here one, sir, if she would—but there never came her like in Mytilene.
LYSIMACHUS. If she’d do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.
BAWD. Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.
LYSIMACHUS. Well, call forth, call forth.
BOULT. For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but—
LYSIMACHUS. What, prithee?
BOULT. O, sir, I can be modest.
LYSIMACHUS. That dignifies the renown of a bawd no less than it gives a good report to a number to be chaste.
[Exit Boult.]
BAWD. Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can assure you.
Re-enter Boult with Marina.
Is she not a fair creature?
LYSIMACHUS. Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s for you: leave us.
BAWD. I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I’ll have done presently.
LYSIMACHUS. I beseech you, do.
BAWD. [To Marina.] First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.
MARINA. I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.
BAWD. Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.
MARINA. If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not.
BAWD. Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold.
MARINA. What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.
LYSIMACHUS. Ha’ you done?
BAWD. My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways.
[Exeunt Bawd, Pandar and Boult.]
LYSIMACHUS. Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?
MARINA. What trade, sir?
LYSIMACHUS. Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.
MARINA. I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.
LYSIMACHUS. How long have you been of this profession?
MARINA. E’er since I can remember.
LYSIMACHUS. Did you go to’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at seven?
MARINA. Earlier, too, sir, if now I be one.
LYSIMACHUS. Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.
MARINA. Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of this place.
LYSIMACHUS. Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?
MARINA. Who is my principal?
LYSIMACHUS. Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.
MARINA. If you were born to honour, show it now; If put upon you, make the judgement good That thought you worthy of it.
LYSIMACHUS. How’s this? how’s this? Some more; be sage.
MARINA. For me, That am a maid, though most ungentle Fortune Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came, Diseases have been sold dearer than physic, O, that the gods Would set me free from this unhallow’d place, Though they did change me to the meanest bird That flies i’ the purer air!
LYSIMACHUS. I did not think Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst. Had I brought hither a corrupted mind, Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here’s gold for thee: Persever in that clear way thou goest, And the gods strengthen thee!
MARINA. The good gods preserve you!
LYSIMACHUS. For me, be you thoughten That I came with no ill intent; for to me The very doors and windows savour vilely. Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and I doubt not but thy training hath been noble. Hold, here’s more gold for thee. A curse upon him, die he like a thief, That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.
Re-enter Boult.
BOULT. I beseech your honour, one piece for me.
LYSIMACHUS. Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper! Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it, Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!
[Exit.]
BOULT. How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a spaniel. Come your ways.
MARINA. Whither would you have me?
BOULT. I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We’ll have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say.
Re-enter Bawd.
BAWD. How now! what’s the matter?
BOULT. Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord Lysimachus.
BAWD. O, abominable!
BOULT. She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the gods.
BAWD. Marry, hang her up for ever!
BOULT. The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.
BAWD. Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable.
BOULT. An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed.
MARINA. Hark, hark, you gods!
BAWD. She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors! Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go the way of womankind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!
[Exit.]
BOULT. Come, mistress; come your way with me.
MARINA. Whither wilt thou have me?
BOULT. To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.
MARINA. Prithee, tell me one thing first.
BOULT. Come now, your one thing?
MARINA. What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?
BOULT. Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress.
MARINA. Neither of these are so bad as thou art, Since they do better thee in their command. Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend Of hell would not in reputation change: Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib. To the choleric fisting of every rogue Thy ear is liable, thy food is such As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.
BOULT. What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?
MARINA. Do anything but this thou doest. Empty Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth; Serve by indenture to the common hangman: Any of these ways are yet better than this; For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak, Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods Would safely deliver me from this place! Here, here’s gold for thee. If that thy master would gain by me, Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance, With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast; And I will undertake all these to teach. I doubt not but this populous city will Yield many scholars.
BOULT. But can you teach all this you speak of?
MARINA. Prove that I cannot, take me home again, And prostitute me to the basest groom That doth frequent your house.
BOULT. Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will.
MARINA. But amongst honest women.
BOULT. Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I’ll do for thee what I can; come your ways.
[Exeunt.]
Act V
Enter Gower.
GOWER. Marina thus the brothel ’scapes, and chances Into an honest house, our story says. She sings like one immortal, and she dances As goddess-like to her admired lays; Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her nee’le composes Nature’s own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry, That even her art sisters the natural roses; Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry: That pupils lacks she none of noble race, Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place; And to her father turn our thoughts again, Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost; Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived God Neptune’s annual feast to keep: from whence Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies, His banners sable, trimm’d with rich expense; And to him in his barge with fervour hies. In your supposing once more put your sight Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark: Where what is done in action, more, if might, Shall be discover’d; please you, sit and hark.
[Exit.]
SCENE I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion on deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined on a couch. A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.
Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to the barge; to them Helicanus.
TYRIAN SAILOR. [To the Sailor of Mytilene.] Where is lord Helicanus? He can resolve you. O, here he is. Sir, there’s a barge put off from Mytilene, And in it is Lysimachus the governor, Who craves to come aboard. What is your will?
HELICANUS. That he have his. Call up some gentlemen.
TYRIAN SAILOR. Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls.
Enter two or three Gentlemen.
FIRST GENTLEMAN. Doth your lordship call?
HELICANUS. Gentlemen, there is some of worth would come aboard; I pray ye, greet them fairly.
[The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend and go on board the barge.]
Enter, from thence, Lysimachus and Lords; with the Gentlemen and the two Sailors.
TYRIAN SAILOR. Sir, This is the man that can, in aught you would, Resolve you.
LYSIMACHUS. Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you!
HELICANUS. And you, sir, to outlive the age I am, And die as I would do.
LYSIMACHUS. You wish me well. Being on shore, honouring of Neptune’s triumphs, Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us, I made to it, to know of whence you are.
HELICANUS. First, what is your place?
LYSIMACHUS. I am the governor of this place you lie before.
HELICANUS. Sir, our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king; A man who for this three months hath not spoken To anyone, nor taken sustenance But to prorogue his grief.
LYSIMACHUS. Upon what ground is his distemperature?
HELICANUS. ’Twould be too tedious to repeat; But the main grief springs from the loss Of a beloved daughter and a wife.
LYSIMACHUS. May we not see him?
HELICANUS. You may; But bootless is your sight: he will not speak To any.
LYSIMACHUS. Yet let me obtain my wish.
HELICANUS. Behold him. [Pericles discovered.] This was a goodly person. Till the disaster that, one mortal night, Drove him to this.
LYSIMACHUS. Sir king, all hail! The gods preserve you! Hail, royal sir!
HELICANUS. It is in vain; he will not speak to you.
FIRST LORD. Sir, we have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager, Would win some words of him.
LYSIMACHUS. ’Tis well bethought. She questionless with her sweet harmony And other chosen attractions, would allure, And make a battery through his deafen’d parts, Which now are midway stopp’d: She is all happy as the fairest of all, And, with her fellow maids, is now upon The leafy shelter that abuts against The island’s side.
[Whispers a Lord who goes off in the barge of Lysimachus.]
HELICANUS. Sure, all’s effectless; yet nothing we’ll omit That bears recovery’s name. But, since your kindness We have stretch’d thus far, let us beseech you That for our gold we may provision have, Wherein we are not destitute for want, But weary for the staleness.
LYSIMACHUS. O, sir, a courtesy Which if we should deny, the most just gods For every graff would send a caterpillar, And so inflict our province. Yet once more Let me entreat to know at large the cause Of your king’s sorrow.
HELICANUS. Sit, sir, I will recount it to you: But, see, I am prevented.
Re-enter from the barge, Lord with Marina and a young Lady.
LYSIMACHUS. O, here is the lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one! Is’t not a goodly presence?
HELICANUS. She’s a gallant lady.
LYSIMACHUS. She’s such a one, that, were I well assured Came of a gentle kind and noble stock, I’d wish no better choice, and think me rarely wed. Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty Expect even here, where is a kingly patient: If that thy prosperous and artificial feat Can draw him but to answer thee in aught, Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay As thy desires can wish.
MARINA. Sir, I will use My utmost skill in his recovery, provided That none but I and my companion maid Be suffer’d to come near him.
LYSIMACHUS. Come, let us leave her, And the gods make her prosperous!
[Marina sings.]
LYSIMACHUS. Mark’d he your music?
MARINA. No, nor look’d on us.
LYSIMACHUS. See, she will speak to him.
MARINA. Hail, sir! My lord, lend ear.
PERICLES. Hum, ha!
MARINA. I am a maid, My lord, that ne’er before invited eyes, But have been gazed on like a comet: she speaks, My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh’d. Though wayward Fortune did malign my state, My derivation was from ancestors Who stood equivalent with mighty kings: But time hath rooted out my parentage, And to the world and awkward casualties Bound me in servitude. [Aside.] I will desist; But there is something glows upon my cheek, And whispers in mine ear ‘Go not till he speak.’
PERICLES. My fortunes—parentage—good parentage— To equal mine!—was it not thus? what say you?
MARINA. I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage, You would not do me violence.
PERICLES. I do think so. Pray you, turn your eyes upon me. You are like something that—what country-woman? Here of these shores?
MARINA. No, nor of any shores: Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am No other than I appear.
PERICLES. I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping. My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one My daughter might have been: my queen’s square brows; Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight; As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like And cased as richly; in pace another Juno; Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry, The more she gives them speech. Where do you live?
MARINA. Where I am but a stranger: from the deck You may discern the place.
PERICLES. Where were you bred? And how achieved you these endowments, which You make more rich to owe?
MARINA. If I should tell my history, it would seem Like lies disdain’d in the reporting.
PERICLES. Prithee, speak: Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look’st Modest as Justice, and thou seem’st a palace For the crown’d Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee, And make my senses credit thy relation To points that seem impossible; for thou look’st Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends? Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back— Which was when I perceived thee—that thou cam’st From good descending?
MARINA. So indeed I did.
PERICLES. Report thy parentage. I think thou said’st Thou hadst been toss’d from wrong to injury, And that thou thought’st thy griefs might equal mine, If both were open’d.
MARINA. Some such thing, I said, and said no more but what my thoughts Did warrant me was likely.
PERICLES. Tell thy story; If thine consider’d prove the thousand part Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I Have suffer’d like a girl: yet thou dost look Like Patience gazing on kings’ graves, and smiling Extremity out of act. What were thy friends? How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin? Recount, I do beseech thee: come, sit by me.
MARINA. My name is Marina.
PERICLES. O, I am mock’d, And thou by some incensed god sent hither To make the world to laugh at me.
MARINA. Patience, good sir, Or here I’ll cease.
PERICLES. Nay, I’ll be patient. Thou little know’st how thou dost startle me, To call thyself Marina.
MARINA. The name Was given me by one that had some power, My father, and a king.
PERICLES. How! a king’s daughter? And call’d Marina?
MARINA. You said you would believe me; But, not to be a troubler of your peace, I will end here.
PERICLES. But are you flesh and blood? Have you a working pulse? and are no fairy? Motion! Well; speak on. Where were you born? And wherefore call’d Marina?
MARINA. Call’d Marina For I was born at sea.
PERICLES. At sea! What mother?
MARINA. My mother was the daughter of a king; Who died the minute I was born, As my good nurse Lychorida hath oft Deliver’d weeping.
PERICLES. O, stop there a little! [Aside.] This is the rarest dream that e’er dull sleep Did mock sad fools withal: this cannot be: My daughter, buried. Well, where were you bred? I’ll hear you more, to the bottom of your story, And never interrupt you.
MARINA. You scorn: believe me, ’twere best I did give o’er.
PERICLES. I will believe you by the syllable Of what you shall deliver. Yet, give me leave: How came you in these parts? Where were you bred?
MARINA. The king my father did in Tarsus leave me; Till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife, Did seek to murder me: and having woo’d A villain to attempt it, who having drawn to do’t, A crew of pirates came and rescued me; Brought me to Mytilene. But, good sir. Whither will you have me? Why do you weep? It may be, You think me an impostor: no, good faith; I am the daughter to King Pericles, If good King Pericles be.
PERICLES. Ho, Helicanus!
Enter Helicanus and Lysimachus.
HELICANUS. Calls my lord?
PERICLES. Thou art a grave and noble counsellor, Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst, What this maid is, or what is like to be, That thus hath made me weep.
HELICANUS. I know not, But here is the regent, sir, of Mytilene Speaks nobly of her.
LYSIMACHUS. She would never tell Her parentage; being demanded that, She would sit still and weep.
PERICLES. O Helicanus, strike me, honour’d sir; Give me a gash, put me to present pain; Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me O’erbear the shores of my mortality, And drown me with their sweetness. [To Marina] O, come hither, Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget; Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus, And found at sea again! O Helicanus, Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud As thunder threatens us: this is Marina. What was thy mother’s name? tell me but that, For truth can never be confirm’d enough, Though doubts did ever sleep.
MARINA. First, sir, I pray, what is your title?
PERICLES. I am Pericles of Tyre: but tell me now My drown’d queen’s name, as in the rest you said Thou hast been godlike perfect, The heir of kingdoms and another life To Pericles thy father.
MARINA. Is it no more to be your daughter than To say my mother’s name was Thaisa? Thaisa was my mother, who did end The minute I began.
PERICLES. Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child. Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus; She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been, By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all; When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge She is thy very princess. Who is this?
HELICANUS. Sir, ’tis the governor of Mytilene, Who, hearing of your melancholy state, Did come to see you.
PERICLES. I embrace you. Give me my robes. I am wild in my beholding. O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music? Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him O’er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt, How sure you are my daughter. But, what music?
HELICANUS. My lord, I hear none.
PERICLES. None! The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.
LYSIMACHUS. It is not good to cross him; give him way.
PERICLES. Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?
LYSIMACHUS. Music, my lord? I hear.
[Music.]
PERICLES. Most heavenly music! It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber Hangs upon mine eyes: let me rest.
[Sleeps.]
LYSIMACHUS. A pillow for his head: So, leave him all. Well, my companion friends, If this but answer to my just belief, I’ll well remember you.
[Exeunt all but Pericles.]
Diana appears to Pericles as in a vision.
DIANA. My temple stands in Ephesus: hie thee thither, And do upon mine altar sacrifice. There, when my maiden priests are met together, Before the people all, Reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife: To mourn thy crosses, with thy daughter’s, call And give them repetition to the life. Or perform my bidding, or thou livest in woe: Do it, and happy; by my silver bow! Awake and tell thy dream.
[Disappears.]
PERICLES. Celestial Dian, goddess argentine, I will obey thee. Helicanus!
Re-enter Helicanus, Lysimachus and Marina.
HELICANUS. Sir?
PERICLES. My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike The inhospitable Cleon; but I am For other service first: toward Ephesus Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I’ll tell thee why. [To Lysimachus.] Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore, And give you gold for such provision As our intents will need?
LYSIMACHUS. Sir, with all my heart, And when you come ashore I have another suit.
PERICLES. You shall prevail, were it to woo my daughter; For it seems you have been noble towards her.
LYSIMACHUS. Sir, lend me your arm.
PERICLES. Come, my Marina.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene II
Enter Gower before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.
GOWER. Now our sands are almost run; More a little, and then dumb. This, my last boon, give me, For such kindness must relieve me, That you aptly will suppose What pageantry, what feats, what shows, What minstrelsy, and pretty din, The regent made in Mytilene To greet the king. So he thrived, That he is promised to be wived To fair Marina; but in no wise Till he had done his sacrifice, As Dian bade: whereto being bound, The interim, pray you, all confound. In feather’d briefness sails are fill’d, And wishes fall out as they’re will’d. At Ephesus, the temple see, Our king and all his company. That he can hither come so soon, Is by your fancy’s thankful doom.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus; Thaisa standing near the altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; Cerimon and other inhabitants of Ephesus attending.
Enter Pericles with his train; Lysimachus, Helicanus, Marina and a Lady.
PERICLES. Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command, I here confess myself the King of Tyre; Who, frighted from my country, did wed At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa. At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth A maid child call’d Marina; whom, O goddess, Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years He sought to murder: but her better stars Brought her to Mytilene; ’gainst whose shore Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us, Where by her own most clear remembrance, she Made known herself my daughter.
THAISA. Voice and favour! You are, you are—O royal Pericles!
[Faints.]
PERICLES. What means the nun? She dies! help, gentlemen!
CERIMON. Noble sir, If you have told Diana’s altar true, This is your wife.
PERICLES. Reverend appearer, no; I threw her overboard with these very arms.
CERIMON. Upon this coast, I warrant you.
PERICLES. ’Tis most certain.
CERIMON. Look to the lady; O, she’s but o’er-joy’d. Early in blustering morn this lady was Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin, Found there rich jewels; recover’d her, and placed her Here in Diana’s temple.
PERICLES. May we see them?
CERIMON. Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house, Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is Recovered.
THAISA. O, let me look! If he be none of mine, my sanctity Will to my sense bend no licentious ear, But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord, Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake, Like him you are: did you not name a tempest, A birth, and death?
PERICLES. The voice of dead Thaisa!
THAISA. That Thaisa am I, supposed dead And drown’d.
PERICLES. Immortal Dian!
THAISA. Now I know you better, When we with tears parted Pentapolis, The king my father gave you such a ring.
[Shows a ring.]
PERICLES. This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well, That on the touching of her lips I may Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried A second time within these arms.
MARINA. My heart Leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.
[Kneels to Thaisa.]
PERICLES. Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa; Thy burden at the sea, and call’d Marina For she was yielded there.
THAISA. Blest, and mine own!
HELICANUS. Hail, madam, and my queen!
THAISA. I know you not.
PERICLES. You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre, I left behind an ancient substitute: Can you remember what I call’d the man? I have named him oft.
THAISA. ’Twas Helicanus then.
PERICLES. Still confirmation: Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he. Now do I long to hear how you were found: How possibly preserved; and who to thank, Besides the gods, for this great miracle.
THAISA. Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man, Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can From first to last resolve you.
PERICLES. Reverend sir, The gods can have no mortal officer More like a god than you. Will you deliver How this dead queen relives?
CERIMON. I will, my lord. Beseech you, first go with me to my house, Where shall be shown you all was found with her; How she came placed here in the temple; No needful thing omitted.
PERICLES. Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I Will offer night-oblations to thee. Thaisa, This prince, the fair betrothed of your daughter, Shall marry her at Pentapolis. And now this ornament Makes me look dismal will I clip to form; And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.
THAISA. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir, My father’s dead.
PERICLES. Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen, We’ll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves Will in that kingdom spend our following days: Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign. Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay To hear the rest untold. Sir, lead’s the way.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Gower.
GOWER. In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard Of monstrous lust the due and just reward: In Pericles, his queen and daughter seen, Although assail’d with Fortune fierce and keen, Virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast, Led on by heaven, and crown’d with joy at last. In Helicanus may you well descry A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty: In reverend Cerimon there well appears The worth that learned charity aye wears: For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame Had spread their cursed deed, the honour’d name Of Pericles, to rage the city turn, That him and his they in his palace burn. The gods for murder seemed so content To punish, although not done, but meant. So on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.
[Exit.]
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND
Dramatis Personæ
KING RICHARD THE SECOND JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk DUKE OF SURREY EARL OF SALISBURY LORD BERKELEY BUSHY - Servant to King Richard BAGOT - Servant to King Richard GREEN - Servant to King Richard EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND HARRY PERCY, surnamed Hotspur, his son LORD ROSS LORD WILLOUGHBY LORD FITZWATER BISHOP OF CARLISLE ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER LORD MARSHAL SIR PIERCE OF EXTON SIR STEPHEN SCROOP Captain of a band of Welshmen
QUEEN TO KING RICHARD DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER DUCHESS OF YORK Lady attending on the Queen
Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants
SCENE: Dispersedly in England and Wales.
Act I, Scene I — London. A Room in the palace
Enter King Richard, John of Gaunt, with other Nobles and Attendants.
KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son, Here to make good the boist’rous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
GAUNT. I have, my liege.
KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice, Or worthily, as a good subject should, On some known ground of treachery in him?
GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent danger seen in him Aimed at your Highness, no inveterate malice.
KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence. Face to face And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear The accuser and the accused freely speak. High-stomached are they both and full of ire, In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
Enter Bolingbroke and Mowbray.
BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY. Each day still better other’s happiness Until the heavens, envying earth’s good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown!
KING RICHARD. We thank you both. Yet one but flatters us, As well appeareth by the cause you come, Namely, to appeal each other of high treason. Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
BOLINGBROKE. First—heaven be the record to my speech!— In the devotion of a subject’s love, Tend’ring the precious safety of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate, Come I appellant to this princely presence. Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well; for what I speak My body shall make good upon this earth, Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor and a miscreant, Too good to be so and too bad to live, Since the more fair and crystal is the sky, The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. Once more, the more to aggravate the note, With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat, And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move, What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may prove.
MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal. ’Tis not the trial of a woman’s war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain; The blood is hot that must be cooled for this. Yet can I not of such tame patience boast As to be hushed and naught at all to say. First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me From giving reins and spurs to my free speech, Which else would post until it had returned These terms of treason doubled down his throat. Setting aside his high blood’s royalty, And let him be no kinsman to my liege, I do defy him, and I spit at him, Call him a slanderous coward and a villain; Which to maintain, I would allow him odds And meet him, were I tied to run afoot Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps, Or any other ground inhabitable Wherever Englishman durst set his foot. Meantime let this defend my loyalty: By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage, Disclaiming here the kindred of the King, And lay aside my high blood’s royalty, Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except. If guilty dread have left thee so much strength As to take up mine honour’s pawn, then stoop. By that and all the rites of knighthood else, Will I make good against thee, arm to arm, What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.
MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder, I’ll answer thee in any fair degree Or chivalrous design of knightly trial. And when I mount, alive may I not light If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray’s charge? It must be great that can inherit us So much as of a thought of ill in him.
BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true: That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles In name of lendings for your highness’ soldiers, The which he hath detained for lewd employments, Like a false traitor and injurious villain. Besides I say, and will in battle prove, Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge That ever was surveyed by English eye, That all the treasons for these eighteen years Complotted and contrived in this land Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring. Further I say, and further will maintain Upon his bad life to make all this good, That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death, Suggest his soon-believing adversaries, And consequently, like a traitor coward, Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood, Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth To me for justice and rough chastisement. And, by the glorious worth of my descent, This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars! Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this?
MOWBRAY. O! let my sovereign turn away his face And bid his ears a little while be deaf, Till I have told this slander of his blood How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears. Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom’s heir, As he is but my father’s brother’s son, Now, by my sceptre’s awe I make a vow Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood Should nothing privilege him nor partialize The unstooping firmness of my upright soul. He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou. Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest. Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldiers; The other part reserved I by consent, For that my sovereign liege was in my debt Upon remainder of a dear account Since last I went to France to fetch his queen. Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death, I slew him not, but to my own disgrace Neglected my sworn duty in that case. For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster, The honourable father to my foe, Once did I lay an ambush for your life, A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul; But ere I last received the sacrament I did confess it and exactly begged Your Grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it. This is my fault. As for the rest appealed, It issues from the rancour of a villain, A recreant and most degenerate traitor, Which in myself I boldly will defend, And interchangeably hurl down my gage Upon this overweening traitor’s foot, To prove myself a loyal gentleman Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom. In haste whereof most heartily I pray Your highness to assign our trial day.
KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me. Let’s purge this choler without letting blood. This we prescribe, though no physician; Deep malice makes too deep incision. Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed; Our doctors say this is no month to bleed. Good uncle, let this end where it begun; We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age. Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk’s gage.
KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
GAUNT. When, Harry, when? Obedience bids I should not bid again.
KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.
MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame. The one my duty owes; but my fair name, Despite of death that lives upon my grave, To dark dishonour’s use thou shalt not have. I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled here, Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear, The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood Which breathed this poison.
KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood. Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame, And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one. Take honour from me, and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live, and for that will I die.
KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.
BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father’s sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdared dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray’s face.
[Exit Gaunt.]
KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command; Which since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it, At Coventry upon Saint Lambert’s day. There shall your swords and lances arbitrate The swelling difference of your settled hate. Since we cannot atone you, we shall see Justice design the victor’s chivalry. Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms Be ready to direct these home alarms.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene II — The same. A room in the Duke of Lancaster’s palace
Enter John of Gaunt with the Duchess of Gloucester.
GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims To stir against the butchers of his life. But since correction lieth in those hands Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven, Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.
DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course, Some of those branches by the Destinies cut; But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester, One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood, One flourishing branch of his most royal root, Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt, Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded, By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody axe. Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine! That bed, that womb, That metal, that self mould, that fashioned thee Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest, Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father’s death In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, Who was the model of thy father’s life. Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair. In suff’ring thus thy brother to be slaughtered, Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life, Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee. That which in mean men we entitle patience Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life, The best way is to venge my Gloucester’s death.
GAUNT. God’s is the quarrel; for God’s substitute, His deputy anointed in His sight, Hath caused his death, the which if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift An angry arm against His minister.
DUCHESS. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?
GAUNT. To God, the widow’s champion and defence.
DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight. O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear, That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast! Or if misfortune miss the first career, Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom That they may break his foaming courser’s back And throw the rider headlong in the lists, A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford! Farewell, old Gaunt. Thy sometimes brother’s wife With her companion, Grief, must end her life.
GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry. As much good stay with thee as go with me!
DUCHESS. Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls, Not with the empty hollowness, but weight. I take my leave before I have begun, For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done. Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York. Lo, this is all. Nay, yet depart not so! Though this be all, do not so quickly go; I shall remember more. Bid him—ah, what?— With all good speed at Plashy visit me. Alack, and what shall good old York there see But empty lodgings and unfurnished walls, Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones? And what hear there for welcome but my groans? Therefore commend me; let him not come there To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere. Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die! The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene III — Open Space, near Coventry. Lists set out, and a Throne. Heralds, &c., attending
Enter the Lord Marshal and the Duke of Aumerle.
MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?
AUMERLE. Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in.
MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold, Stays but the summons of the appelant’s trumpet.
AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepared and stay For nothing but his Majesty’s approach.
Enter King Richard, who takes his seat on his Throne; Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Green and others, who take their places. A trumpet is sounded, and answered by another trumpet within. Then enter Mowbray in armour, defendant, preceded by a Herald.
KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion The cause of his arrival here in arms. Ask him his name, and orderly proceed To swear him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL. In God’s name and the King’s, say who thou art, And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms, Against what man thou com’st, and what thy quarrel. Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath, As so defend thee heaven and thy valour.
MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, Who hither come engaged by my oath— Which God defend a knight should violate!— Both to defend my loyalty and truth To God, my King, and my succeeding issue, Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me, And, by the grace of God and this mine arm, To prove him, in defending of myself, A traitor to my God, my king, and me; And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.
[He takes his seat.]
Trumpet sounds. Enter Bolingbroke, appellant, in armour, preceded by a Herald.
KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms Both who he is and why he cometh hither Thus plated in habiliments of war, And formally, according to our law, Depose him in the justice of his cause.
MARSHAL. What is thy name? And wherefore com’st thou hither Before King Richard in his royal lists? Against whom comest thou? and what’s thy quarrel? Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Am I, who ready here do stand in arms To prove by God’s grace and my body’s valour, In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, That he’s a traitor foul and dangerous, To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me. And as I truly fight, defend me heaven.
MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists, Except the Marshal and such officers Appointed to direct these fair designs.
BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand And bow my knee before his Majesty. For Mowbray and myself are like two men That vow a long and weary pilgrimage; Then let us take a ceremonious leave And loving farewell of our several friends.
MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your highness And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
KING RICHARD. [Descends from his throne.] We will descend and fold him in our arms. Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right, So be thy fortune in this royal fight. Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed, Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear For me, if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear. As confident as is the falcon’s flight Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight. My loving lord, I take my leave of you. Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle; Not sick, although I have to do with death, But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath. Lo! as at English feasts, so I regreet The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet. O thou, the earthly author of my blood, Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate, Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up To reach at victory above my head, Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers, And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point, That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat And furbish new the name of John o’ Gaunt, Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous. Be swift like lightning in the execution, And let thy blows, doubly redoubled, Fall like amazing thunder on the casque Of thy adverse pernicious enemy. Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
[He takes his seat.]
MOWBRAY. [Rising.] However God or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne, A loyal, just, and upright gentleman. Never did captive with a freer heart Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement, More than my dancing soul doth celebrate This feast of battle with mine adversary. Most mighty liege, and my companion peers, Take from my mouth the wish of happy years. As gentle and as jocund as to jest Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.
KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye. Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
[The King and the Lords return to their seats.]
MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right.
BOLINGBROKE. [Rising.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry “Amen”!
MARSHAL. [To an officer.] Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself, On pain to be found false and recreant, To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, A traitor to his God, his King, and him, And dares him to set forward to the fight.
SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, On pain to be found false and recreant, Both to defend himself and to approve Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal, Courageously and with a free desire, Attending but the signal to begin.
MARSHAL. Sound trumpets, and set forward, combatants.
[A charge sounded.]
Stay! the King hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears, And both return back to their chairs again. Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound While we return these dukes what we decree.
[A long flourish.]
[To the Combatants.] Draw near, And list what with our council we have done. For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled With that dear blood which it hath fostered; And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords; And for we think the eagle-winged pride Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts, With rival-hating envy, set on you To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep, Which so roused up with boist’rous untuned drums, With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray, And grating shock of wrathful iron arms, Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood: Therefore we banish you our territories. You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life, Till twice five summers have enriched our fields Shall not regreet our fair dominions, But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be: That sun that warms you here shall shine on me, And those his golden beams to you here lent Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce: The sly slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile. The hopeless word of “never to return” Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlooked for from your highness’ mouth. A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air, Have I deserved at your highness’ hands. The language I have learnt these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue’s use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips, And dull unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now. What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death, Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate. After our sentence plaining comes too late.
MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my country’s light, To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
[Retiring.]
KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee. Lay on our royal sword your banished hands. Swear by the duty that you owe to God— Our part therein we banish with yourselves— To keep the oath that we administer: You never shall, so help you truth and God, Embrace each other’s love in banishment; Nor never look upon each other’s face; Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile This louring tempest of your home-bred hate; Nor never by advised purpose meet To plot, contrive, or complot any ill ’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
BOLINGBROKE. I swear.
MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.
BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy: By this time, had the King permitted us, One of our souls had wandered in the air, Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh, As now our flesh is banished from this land. Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm. Since thou hast far to go, bear not along The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke. If ever I were traitor, My name be blotted from the book of life, And I from heaven banished as from hence! But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know; And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue. Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray; Save back to England, all the world’s my way.
[Exit.]
KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect Hath from the number of his banished years Plucked four away. [To Bolingbroke.] Six frozen winters spent, Return with welcome home from banishment.
BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me He shortens four years of my son’s exile; But little vantage shall I reap thereby, For, ere the six years that he hath to spend Can change their moons and bring their times about, My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light Shall be extinct with age and endless night; My inch of taper will be burnt and done, And blindfold death not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
GAUNT. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give. Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow. Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage; Thy word is current with him for my death, But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
KING RICHARD. Thy son is banished upon good advice, Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave. Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?
GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour. You urged me as a judge, but I had rather You would have bid me argue like a father. O, had it been a stranger, not my child, To smooth his fault I should have been more mild. A partial slander sought I to avoid, And in the sentence my own life destroyed. Alas, I looked when some of you should say I was too strict to make mine own away; But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell, and, uncle, bid him so. Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
[Flourish. Exit King Richard and Train.]
AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know, From where you do remain let paper show.
MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your side.
GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue’s office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make Will but remember me what a deal of world I wander from the jewels that I love. Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages, and in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus: There is no virtue like necessity. Think not the King did banish thee, But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit Where it perceives it is but faintly borne. Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, And not the King exiled thee; or suppose Devouring pestilence hangs in our air, And thou art flying to a fresher clime. Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st. Suppose the singing birds musicians, The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strewed, The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more Than a delightful measure or a dance; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O no, the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more Than when it bites but lanceth not the sore.
GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way. Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE. Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu, My mother and my nurse that bears me yet! Where’er I wander, boast of this I can, Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman.
[Exeunt.]
Act I, Scene IV — London. A Room in the King’s Castle
Enter King Richard, Green and Bagot at one door; Aumerle at another.
KING RICHARD. We did observe.—Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE. Faith, none for me, except the northeast wind, Which then blew bitterly against our faces, Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE. “Farewell.” And, for my heart disdained that my tongue Should so profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit oppression of such grief That words seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave. Marry, would the word “farewell” have lengthened hours And added years to his short banishment, He should have had a volume of farewells, But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin, but ’tis doubt, When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship to the common people, How he did seem to dive into their hearts With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw away on slaves, Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles And patient underbearing of his fortune, As ’twere to banish their affects with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With “Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends”, As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.
GREEN. Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts. Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland, Expedient manage must be made, my liege, Ere further leisure yield them further means For their advantage and your highness’ loss.
KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war. And, for our coffers, with too great a court And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light, We are enforced to farm our royal realm, The revenue whereof shall furnish us For our affairs in hand. If that come short, Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich, They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold, And send them after to supply our wants; For we will make for Ireland presently.
Enter Bushy.
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord, Suddenly taken, and hath sent posthaste To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD. Where lies he?
BUSHY. At Ely House.
KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in his physician’s mind To help him to his grave immediately! The lining of his coffers shall make coats To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars. Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him. Pray God we may make haste and come too late!
ALL. Amen!
[Exeunt.]
Act II, Scene I — London. An Apartment in Ely House
Gaunt on a couch; the Duke of York and Others standing by him.
GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath, For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony. Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say is listened more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose. More are men’s ends marked than their lives before. The setting sun and music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past. Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear, My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
YORK. No, it is stopped with other flattering sounds, As praises, of whose state the wise are fond; Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound The open ear of youth doth always listen; Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation Limps after in base imitation. Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity— So it be new, there’s no respect how vile— That is not quickly buzzed into his ears? Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, Where will doth mutiny with wit’s regard. Direct not him whose way himself will choose. ’Tis breath thou lack’st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspired, And thus expiring do foretell of him: His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Feared by their breed, and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out—I die pronouncing it— Like to a tenement or pelting farm. England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of wat’ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds That England that was wont to conquer others Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!
Enter King Richard and Queen; Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross and Willoughby.
YORK. The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth, For young hot colts, being raged, do rage the more.
QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?
GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old. Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast, And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watched; Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. The pleasure that some fathers feed upon Is my strict fast—I mean my children’s looks, And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt. Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself. Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
GAUNT. No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.
GAUNT. O, no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
GAUNT. Now, He that made me knows I see thee ill, Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land, Wherein thou liest in reputation sick; And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Committ’st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head; And yet, encaged in so small a verge, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land. O, had thy grandsire with a prophet’s eye Seen how his son’s son should destroy his sons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possessed, Which art possessed now to depose thyself. Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world, It were a shame to let this land by lease; But for thy world enjoying but this land, Is it not more than shame to shame it so? Landlord of England art thou now, not king. Thy state of law is bondslave to the law, And thou—
KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague’s privilege, Darest with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood With fury from his native residence. Now, by my seat’s right royal majesty, Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son, This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
GAUNT. O! spare me not, my brother Edward’s son, For that I was his father Edward’s son. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapped out, and drunkenly caroused. My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul, Whom fair befall in heaven ’mongst happy souls!— May be a precedent and witness good That thou respect’st not spilling Edward’s blood. Join with the present sickness that I have, And thy unkindness be like crooked age To crop at once a too-long withered flower. Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! These words hereafter thy tormentors be! Convey me to my bed, then to my grave. Love they to live that love and honour have.
[Exit, borne off by his Attendants.]
KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have, For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
YORK. I do beseech your Majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him. He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear As Harry, Duke of Hereford, were he here.
KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford’s love, so his; As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.
Enter Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
KING RICHARD. What says he?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said. His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he. His time is spent; our pilgrimage must be. So much for that. Now for our Irish wars: We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns, Which live like venom where no venom else But only they have privilege to live. And, for these great affairs do ask some charge, Towards our assistance we do seize to us The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.
YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong? Not Gloucester’s death, nor Hereford’s banishment, Nor Gaunt’s rebukes, nor England’s private wrongs, Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke About his marriage, nor my own disgrace, Have ever made me sour my patient cheek, Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign’s face. I am the last of noble Edward’s sons, Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first. In war was never lion raged more fierce, In peace was never gentle lamb more mild, Than was that young and princely gentleman. His face thou hast, for even so looked he, Accomplished with the number of thy hours; But when he frowned, it was against the French And not against his friends. His noble hand Did win what he did spend, and spent not that Which his triumphant father’s hand had won. His hands were guilty of no kindred’s blood, But bloody with the enemies of his kin. O Richard! York is too far gone with grief, Or else he never would compare between.
KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what’s the matter?
YORK. O my liege. Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased Not to be pardoned, am content withal. Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands The royalties and rights of banished Hereford? Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live? Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true? Did not the one deserve to have an heir? Is not his heir a well-deserving son? Take Hereford’s rights away, and take from Time His charters and his customary rights; Let not tomorrow then ensue today; Be not thyself; for how art thou a king But by fair sequence and succession? Now, afore God—God forbid I say true!— If you do wrongfully seize Hereford’s rights, Call in the letters patents that he hath By his attorneys-general to sue His livery, and deny his offered homage, You pluck a thousand dangers on your head, You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts, And prick my tender patience to those thoughts Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
YORK. I’ll not be by the while. My liege, farewell. What will ensue hereof there’s none can tell; But by bad courses may be understood That their events can never fall out good.
[Exit.]
KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight. Bid him repair to us to Ely House To see this business. Tomorrow next We will for Ireland, and ’tis time, I trow. And we create, in absence of ourself, Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England, For he is just, and always loved us well. Come on, our queen. Tomorrow must we part; Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
[Exeunt King, Queen, Bushy, Aumerle, Green and Bagot.]
NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
ROSS. And living too, for now his son is Duke.
WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
ROSS. My heart is great, but it must break with silence Ere’t be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind, and let him ne’er speak more That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford? If it be so, out with it boldly, man. Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him, Unless you call it good to pity him, Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, ’tis shame such wrongs are borne In him, a royal prince, and many moe Of noble blood in this declining land. The King is not himself, but basely led By flatterers; and what they will inform, Merely in hate ’gainst any of us all, That will the King severely prosecute ’Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
ROSS. The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes, And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.
WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devised, As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what. But what, i’ God’s name, doth become of this?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warred he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise That which his ancestors achieved with blows. More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
WILLOUGHBY. The King’s grown bankrupt like a broken man.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars, His burdenous taxations notwithstanding, But by the robbing of the banished Duke.
NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman. Most degenerate king! But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing, Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm; We see the wind sit sore upon our sails, And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
ROSS. We see the very wrack that we must suffer; And unavoided is the danger now For suffering so the causes of our wrack.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so. Even through the hollow eyes of death I spy life peering; but I dare not say How near the tidings of our comfort is.
WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland. We three are but thyself, and, speaking so, Thy words are but as thoughts. Therefore be bold.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay In Brittany, received intelligence That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham, That late broke from the Duke of Exeter, His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury, Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston, Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Coint, All these well furnished by the Duke of Brittany With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war, Are making hither with all due expedience, And shortly mean to touch our northern shore. Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay The first departing of the king for Ireland. If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country’s broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown, Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt, And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh. But if you faint, as fearing to do so, Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
[Exeunt.]
Act II, Scene II — The Same. A Room in the Castle
Enter Queen, Bushy and Bagot.
BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad. You promised, when you parted with the King, To lay aside life-harming heaviness And entertain a cheerful disposition.
QUEEN. To please the King I did; to please myself I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks, Some unborn sorrow, ripe in Fortune’s womb, Is coming towards me, and my inward soul With nothing trembles. At something it grieves More than with parting from my lord the King.
BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, Which shows like grief itself, but is not so; For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects, Like perspectives which, rightly gazed upon, Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry, Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty, Looking awry upon your lord’s departure, Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail, Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen, More than your lord’s departure weep not. More is not seen, Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye, Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be, I cannot but be sad—so heavy sad As thought, in thinking, on no thought I think, Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
BUSHY. ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
QUEEN. ’Tis nothing less. Conceit is still derived From some forefather grief. Mine is not so, For nothing hath begot my something grief, Or something hath the nothing that I grieve. ’Tis in reversion that I do possess, But what it is, that is not yet known what, I cannot name. ’Tis nameless woe, I wot.
Enter Green.
GREEN. God save your majesty! And well met, gentlemen. I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.
QUEEN. Why hop’st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is, For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope. Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped?
GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retired his power, And driven into despair an enemy’s hope Who strongly hath set footing in this land. The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself, And with uplifted arms is safe arrived At Ravenspurgh.
QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!
GREEN. Ah, madam, ’tis too true; and that is worse, The Lord Northumberland, his son young Harry Percy, The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
BUSHY. Why have you not proclaimed Northumberland And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
GREEN. We have, whereupon the Earl of Worcester Hath broken his staff, resigned his stewardship, And all the household servants fled with him To Bolingbroke.
QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe, And Bolingbroke my sorrow’s dismal heir. Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy, And I, a gasping new-delivered mother, Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.
BUSHY. Despair not, madam.
QUEEN. Who shall hinder me? I will despair and be at enmity With cozening hope. He is a flatterer, A parasite, a keeper-back of death, Who gently would dissolve the bands of life, Which false hope lingers in extremity.
Enter York.
GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.
QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck. O! full of careful business are his looks! Uncle, for God’s sake, speak comfortable words.
YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts. Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief. Your husband, he is gone to save far off, Whilst others come to make him lose at home. Here am I left to underprop his land, Who, weak with age, cannot support myself. Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made; Now shall he try his friends that flattered him.
Enter a Servingman.
SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.
YORK. He was? Why, so! Go all which way it will! The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side. Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester; Bid her send me presently a thousand pound. Hold, take my ring.
SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship: Today, as I came by, I called there— But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
YORK. What is’t, knave?
SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
YORK. God for his mercy, what a tide of woes Comes rushing on this woeful land at once! I know not what to do. I would to God, So my untruth had not provoked him to it, The King had cut off my head with my brother’s. What, are there no posts dispatched for Ireland? How shall we do for money for these wars? Come, sister—cousin, I would say, pray, pardon me. Go, fellow, get thee home; provide some carts And bring away the armour that is there.
[Exit Servingman.]
Gentlemen, will you go muster men? If I know how or which way to order these affairs Thus disorderly thrust into my hands, Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen. Th’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath And duty bids defend; th’ other again Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged, Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. Well, somewhat we must do. Come, cousin, I’ll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men, And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle. I should to Plashy too, But time will not permit. All is uneven, And everything is left at six and seven.
[Exeunt York and Queen.]
BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland, But none returns. For us to levy power Proportionable to the enemy Is all unpossible.
GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love Is near the hate of those love not the King.
BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons, for their love Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them, By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemned.
BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we, Because we ever have been near the King.
GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle. The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
BUSHY. Thither will I with you, for little office Will the hateful commons perform for us, Except like curs to tear us all to pieces. Will you go along with us?
BAGOT. No, I will to Ireland to his Majesty. Farewell. If heart’s presages be not vain, We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.
BUSHY. That’s as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! The task he undertakes Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry. Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly. Farewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.
BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.
BAGOT. I fear me, never.
[Exeunt.]