“I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it.”
I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
Here’s a young maid with travel much oppressed,
And faints for succour.
CORIN.
Fair sir, I pity her
And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
My fortunes were more able to relieve her.
But I am shepherd to another man
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.
My master is of churlish disposition
And little recks to find the way to heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality.
Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now,
By reason of his absence, there is nothing
That you will feed on. But what is, come see,
And in my voice most welcome shall you be.
ROSALIND.
What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?
CORIN.
That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
That little cares for buying anything.
ROSALIND.
I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,
And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.
CELIA.
And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,
And willingly could waste my time in it.
CORIN.
Assuredly the thing is to be sold.
Go with me. If you like upon report
The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,
I will your very faithful feeder be,
And buy it with your gold right suddenly.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. Another part of the Forest
Enter Amiens, Jaques and others.
AMIENS.
[_Sings_.]
Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
JAQUES.
More, more, I prithee, more.
AMIENS.
It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
JAQUES.
I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song
as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.
AMIENS.
My voice is ragged. I know I cannot please you.
JAQUES.
I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more,
another _stanzo_. Call you ’em _stanzos?
“The worst is death, and death will have his day.”
Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD.
I had forgot myself. Am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest!
Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
Enter Sir Stephen Scroop.
SCROOP.
More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD.
Mine ear is open and my heart prepared.
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care,
And what loss is it to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be. If he serve God,
We’ll serve Him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend.
They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay.
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP.
Glad am I that your highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores
As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; boys with women’s voices
Strive to speak big and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
KING RICHARD.
Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
“Speak low, if you speak love.”
For, hear me, Hero: wooing,
wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace:
the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and
ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into
the cinquepace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
LEONATO.
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
BEATRICE.
I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.
LEONATO.
The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.
Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don
John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and Others, masked.
DON PEDRO.
Lady, will you walk about with your friend?
HERO.
So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for
the walk; and especially when I walk away.
DON PEDRO.
With me in your company?
HERO.
I may say so, when I please.
DON PEDRO.
And when please you to say so?
HERO.
When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!
DON PEDRO.
My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
HERO.
Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.
DON PEDRO.
Speak low, if you speak love.
[Takes her aside.]
BALTHASAR.
Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET.
So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.
BALTHASAR.
Which is one?
MARGARET.
I say my prayers aloud.
BALTHASAR.
I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.
MARGARET.
God match me with a good dancer!
BALTHASAR.
Amen.
MARGARET.
And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.
BALTHASAR.
No more words: the clerk is answered.
URSULA.
I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.
ANTONIO.
At a word, I am not.
URSULA.
I know you by the waggling of your head.
ANTONIO.
To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
URSULA.
You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very
man. Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.
ANTONIO.
At a word, I am not.
URSULA.
Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent
wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will
appear, and there’s an end.
“Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honor bright”
Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,
And great Troy shrieking.
ACHILLES.
I do believe it; for they pass’d by me
As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
ULYSSES.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow—
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;
And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
“Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devourd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Ke”
I do not strain at the position—
It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
That no man is the lord of anything,
Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in the applause
Where th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate
The voice again; or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
Th’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
A very horse that has he knows not what!
Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,
And great Troy shrieking.
ACHILLES.
I do believe it; for they pass’d by me
As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
ULYSSES.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow—
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;
And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
“Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. Ill tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.”
By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
ORLANDO.
He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.
JAQUES.
There I shall see mine own figure.
ORLANDO.
Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
JAQUES.
I’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.
ORLANDO.
I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.
[_Exit Jaques.—Celia and Rosalind come forward._]
ROSALIND.
I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the
knave with him.
Do you hear, forester?
ORLANDO.
Very well. What would you?
ROSALIND.
I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
ORLANDO.
You should ask me what time o’ day. There’s no clock in the forest.
ROSALIND.
Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute
and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a
clock.
ORLANDO.
And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?
ROSALIND.
By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
I’ll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time
gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
ORLANDO.
I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
ROSALIND.
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her
marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a
se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven
year.
ORLANDO.
Who ambles time withal?
ROSALIND.
With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout;
for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives
merrily because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean
and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious
penury. These time ambles withal.
ORLANDO.
Who doth he gallop withal?
ROSALIND.
With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can
fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
ORLANDO.
Who stays it still withal?
ROSALIND.
With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and
then they perceive not how time moves.
ORLANDO.
Where dwell you, pretty youth?
“Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
Good Monsieur Charles. What’s the new news at the new court?
CHARLES.
There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news. That is, the old
Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke, and three or four
loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose
lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good
leave to wander.
OLIVER.
Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, be banished with her
father?
CHARLES.
O, no; for the Duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever
from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her
exile or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court and no less
beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved
as they do.
OLIVER.
Where will the old Duke live?
CHARLES.
They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men
with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They
say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time
carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
OLIVER.
What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?
CHARLES.
Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given,
sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a
disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow,
sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some
broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and
tender, and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for
my own honour if he come in. Therefore, out of my love to you, I came
hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his
intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that
it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
OLIVER.
Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will
most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose
herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it;
but he is resolute.
“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.”
when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revelled in the night
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
Enter Salisbury.
Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY.
Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
Today, today, unhappy day, too late,
O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
AUMERLE.
Comfort, my liege. Why looks your Grace so pale?
KING RICHARD.
But now, the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
And till so much blood thither come again
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE.
Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD.
I had forgot myself. Am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest!
Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,
Nor shall not be the last, like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I kinged again, and by and by
Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing.
Music do I hear? [_Music_.]
Ha, ha! keep time! How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock.
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell. So sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours. But my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’ the clock.
This music mads me! Let it sound no more;
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,
For ’tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter a Groom of the stable.
GROOM.
Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD.
Thanks, noble peer.
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou, and how comest thou hither
Where no man never comes but that sad dog
That brings me food to make misfortune live?
“Experience is by industry achieved, and perfected by the swift course of time”
A room in Antonio’s house
Enter Antonio and Pantino.
ANTONIO.
Tell me, Pantino, what sad talk was that
Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
PANTINO.
’Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.
ANTONIO.
Why, what of him?
PANTINO.
He wondered that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home
While other men, of slender reputation,
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
Some to the wars to try their fortune there;
Some to discover islands far away;
Some to the studious universities.
For any or for all these exercises
He said that Proteus your son was meet,
And did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home,
Which would be great impeachment to his age
In having known no travel in his youth.
ANTONIO.
Nor need’st thou much importune me to that
Whereon this month I have been hammering.
I have considered well his loss of time,
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
Not being tried and tutored in the world.
Experience is by industry achieved
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Then tell me whither were I best to send him?
PANTINO.
I think your lordship is not ignorant
How his companion, youthful Valentine,
Attends the Emperor in his royal court.
ANTONIO.
I know it well.
PANTINO.
’Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither.
There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,
Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,
And be in eye of every exercise
Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
ANTONIO.
I like thy counsel; well hast thou advised,
And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,
The execution of it shall make known.
Even with the speediest expedition
I will dispatch him to the Emperor’s court.
PANTINO.
Tomorrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso
With other gentlemen of good esteem
Are journeying to salute the Emperor
And to commend their service to his will.
ANTONIO.
Good company. With them shall Proteus go.
Enter Proteus reading a letter.
And in good time! Now will we break with him.
PROTEUS.
Sweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!
“If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me”
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO.
How far is’t call’d to Forres?—What are these,
So wither’d, and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on’t?—Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH.
Speak, if you can;—what are you?
FIRST WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
SECOND WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
THIRD WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO.
Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
FIRST WITCH.
Hail!
SECOND WITCH.
Hail!
THIRD WITCH.
Hail!
FIRST WITCH.
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
SECOND WITCH.
Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH.
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH.
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH.
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?—Speak, I charge you.
[_Witches vanish._]
BANQUO.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?
MACBETH.
Into the air; and what seem’d corporal,
Melted as breath into the wind.
Would they had stay’d!
“I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me: For now hath Time made me his numbring clock; My thoughts are minutes”
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,
Nor shall not be the last, like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I kinged again, and by and by
Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing.
Music do I hear? [_Music_.]
Ha, ha! keep time! How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock.
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell. So sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours. But my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’ the clock.
This music mads me! Let it sound no more;
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,
For ’tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter a Groom of the stable.
GROOM.
Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD.
Thanks, noble peer.
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou, and how comest thou hither
Where no man never comes but that sad dog
That brings me food to make misfortune live?
“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”
Enter, go in; the market bell is rung.
PUCELLE.
Now, Rouen, I’ll shake thy bulwarks to the ground.
[_Exeunt._]
Enter Charles, the Bastard of Orleans, Alençon, Reignier and forces.
CHARLES.
Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem,
And once again we’ll sleep secure in Rouen.
BASTARD.
Here enter’d Pucelle and her practisants;
Now she is there, how will she specify
Here is the best and safest passage in?
REIGNIER.
By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower,
Which, once discern’d, shows that her meaning is:
No way to that, for weakness, which she enter’d.
Enter La Pucelle, on the top, thrusting out a torch burning.
PUCELLE.
Behold, this is the happy wedding torch
That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,
But burning fatal to the Talbonites.
[_Exit._]
BASTARD.
See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;
The burning torch, in yonder turret stands.
CHARLES.
Now shine it like a comet of revenge,
A prophet to the fall of all our foes!
REIGNIER.
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;
Enter and cry, “The Dauphin!” presently,
And then do execution on the watch.
[_Alarum. Exeunt._]
An alarum. Enter Talbot in an excursion.
TALBOT.
France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,
If Talbot but survive thy treachery.
Pucelle, that witch, that damned sorceress,
Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,
That hardly we escaped the pride of France.
[_Exit._]
An alarum. Excursions. Bedford, brought in sick in a chair. Enter
Talbot and Burgundy without: within, La Pucelle, Charles, Bastard,
Alençon, and Reignier on the walls.
PUCELLE.
Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?
I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast
Before he’ll buy again at such a rate.
’Twas full of darnel. Do you like the taste?
BURGUNDY.
Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan!
I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,
And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.
CHARLES.
Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.
BEDFORD.
O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!
“On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined”
[Notes: _James Thomson_, born 1700, died 1748. He was educated for the
Scotch ministry, but came to London, and commenced his career as a poet
by the series of poems called the 'Seasons,' descriptive of scenes in
nature.
_The Muses, i.e._, the Sciences and Arts, which flourish best
where there are free institutions.]
* * * * *
WATERLOO.
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;--
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising
knell!
Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street:
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet--
But hark!--That heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness:
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise?
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning-star;
While throng'd the citizens, with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips,--"The foe!
“For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
In many’s looks, the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.
94
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense,
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to it self, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
95
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
O what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
96
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort:
As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”
I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,
But never more be officer of mine.
Enter Desdemona, attended.
Look, if my gentle love be not rais’d up!
I’ll make thee an example.
DESDEMONA.
What’s the matter?
OTHELLO.
All’s well now, sweeting; come away to bed.
Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon.
Lead him off.
[_Montano is led off._]
Iago, look with care about the town,
And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
Come, Desdemona: ’tis the soldiers’ life
To have their balmy slumbers wak’d with strife.
[_Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio._]
IAGO.
What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
CASSIO.
Ay, past all surgery.
IAGO.
Marry, Heaven forbid!
CASSIO.
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I
have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My
reputation, Iago, my reputation!
IAGO.
As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound;
there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle
and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without
deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute
yourself such a loser. What, man, there are ways to recover the general
again: you are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy
than in malice, even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to
affright an imperious lion: sue to him again, and he’s yours.
CASSIO.
I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander
with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and
speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with
one’s own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name
to be known by, let us call thee devil!
IAGO.
What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?
CASSIO.
I know not.
IAGO.
Is’t possible?
CASSIO.
I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but
nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths
to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel,
and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
“Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits”
I say we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady
To empirics, or to dissever so
Our great self and our credit, to esteem
A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
HELENA.
My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
I will no more enforce mine office on you,
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one to bear me back again.
KING.
I cannot give thee less, to be call’d grateful.
Thou thought’st to help me; and such thanks I give
As one near death to those that wish him live.
But what at full I know, thou know’st no part;
I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
HELENA.
What I can do can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest ’gainst remedy.
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister.
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
KING.
I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.
Thy pains, not us’d, must by thyself be paid;
Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward.
HELENA.
Inspired merit so by breath is barr’d.
It is not so with Him that all things knows
As ’tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim,
But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power nor you past cure.
KING.
Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop’st thou my cure?
HELENA.
The greatest grace lending grace.
Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
Moist Hesperus hath quench’d her sleepy lamp;
Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
“Pray, do not mock me:I am a very foolish fond old man,Fourscore and upward, not an hour more, or less:And, to deal plainly,I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”
Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.
PHYSICIAN.
Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.
CORDELIA.
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
LEAR.
You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
CORDELIA.
Sir, do you know me?
LEAR.
You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?
CORDELIA.
Still, still, far wide!
PHYSICIAN.
He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.
LEAR.
Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abus’d. I should e’en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
Of my condition!
CORDELIA.
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o’er me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.
LEAR.
Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
CORDELIA.
And so I am. I am.
LEAR.
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.
CORDELIA.
No cause, no cause.
LEAR.
Am I in France?
KENT.
In your own kingdom, sir.
LEAR.
Do not abuse me.
PHYSICIAN.
Be comforted, good madam, the great rage,
You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
Till further settling.
CORDELIA.
Will’t please your highness walk?
LEAR.
You must bear with me:
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.
“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
Neither to you nor anyone; having no witness to confirm my speech.
Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast
asleep. Observe her; stand close.
DOCTOR.
How came she by that light?
GENTLEWOMAN.
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her
command.
DOCTOR.
You see, her eyes are open.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Ay, but their sense are shut.
DOCTOR.
What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN.
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I
have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH.
Yet here’s a spot.
DOCTOR.
Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my
remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH.
Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two. Why, then ’tis time to do’t.
Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who
would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR.
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH.
The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands
ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all
with this starting.
DOCTOR.
Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN.
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what
she has known.
LADY MACBETH.
Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will
not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
DOCTOR.
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
GENTLEWOMAN.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole
body.
DOCTOR.
Well, well, well.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Pray God it be, sir.
DOCTOR.
This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have
walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH.
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you
yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
“O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, When none will sweat but for promotion”
What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce
A thievish living on the common road?
This I must do, or know not what to do.
Yet this I will not do, do how I can.
I rather will subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.
ADAM.
But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown.
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age. Here is the gold.
All this I give you. Let me be your servant.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty,
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility.
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly. Let me go with you.
I’ll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.
ORLANDO.
O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed.
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion,
And having that do choke their service up
Even with the having. It is not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.
But come thy ways, we’ll go along together,
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent
We’ll light upon some settled low content.
ADAM.
Master, go on and I will follow thee
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here lived I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,
But at fourscore it is too late a week.
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well and not my master’s debtor.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden
Enter Rosalind as Ganymede, Celia as Aliena, and Touchstone.
ROSALIND.
O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!
TOUCHSTONE.
I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.
ROSALIND.
I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel, and to cry like
a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose
ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.