you; You are always my good friend: if your will pass, Gar. Good master secretary, I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst Of all this table, say so. Crom. Why, my lord? Gar. Do not I know you for a favourer Of this new sect? Ye are not sound. Crom. Gar. Not sound, I say. Crom. Not sound? 'Would you were half so honest! Remember your bold life too. Forbear, for shame, my lords. Crom. Do. This is too much; I have done. And I. Chan. Then thus for you, my lord,-It stands agreed, I take it, by all voices, that forthwith Gur. Cran. Enter Guard. Must I go like a traitor thither P Gar. And see him safe i' the Tower. Cran. For me ? Receive him, Stay, good my lords; I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords; To a most noble judge, the king my master. Sur. 'Tis no counterfeit. Suf. 'Tis the right ring, by Heaven: I told ye all, When we first put this dangerous stone a rolling, 'Twould fall upon ourselves. Nor. Do you think, my lords, The king will suffer but the little finger Of this man to be vex'd? 'Tis now too certain : My mind gave me, 'Would I were fairly out on't. Crom. In seeking tales and informations Against this man (whose honesty the devil And his disciples only envy at), Ye blew the fire that burns ye: now have at ye. In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince; His royal self in judgment comes to hear Bishop of Winchester. But know, I come not He, that dares most, but wag his finger at thee: K. Hen. No, sir, it does not please me. I had thought, I had had men of some understanding Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean: Chan. Thus far My most dread sovereign, may it like your grace To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd Concerning his imprisonment, was rather (If there be faith in men) meant for his trial, And fair purgation to the world, than malice; I am sure, in me. K. Hen. Am, for his love and service, so to him. terbury, I have a suit which you must not deny me: And Lady Marquis Dorset: will these please you? you take the court for Paris-garden? Ye rude slaves, leave your gaping. [Within.] Good master porter, I belong to the larder. Port. Belong to the gallows, and be hanged, you rogue: is this a place to roar in ?-Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, and strong ones; these are but switches to them.-I'll scratch your heads: you must be seeing christenings? Do you look for ale and cakes bere, you rude rascals? Man. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible (Unless we sweep them from the door with cannons), To scatter them, as 'tis to make them sleep On May-day morning; which will never be: We may as well push against Paul's, as stir them. Port. How got they in, and be hang'd? Man. Alas, I know not; how gets the tide in? As much as one sound cudgel of four foot (You see the poor remainder) could distribute, I made no spare, sir. Port. Man. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them down before me: but if I spared any, that had a head to hit, either young or old, he or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker, let me never hope to see a chine again; and that I would not for a cow, God save her. You did nothing, sir. [Within.] Do you hear, master porter? Port. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.-Keep the door close, sirrah. Man. What would you have me do? Port. What should you do, but knock them down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? or have we some strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication is at the door! On my christian conscience, this one christening will beget thousand; here will be father, godfather, and all together. Man. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now reign in 's nose; all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance: that fire-drake did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged against me; he stands there, like a mortar piece, to blow us. There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the state. I I miss'd the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out, clubs! when I might see from far some forty truncheoneers draw to her succour, which were the hope of the Strand, where she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place; at length they came to the broom staff with me. I defied them still; when suddenly a file of boys behind them, loose shot, delivered such a shower of pebbles, that I was fain to draw mine honour in, and let them win the work. The devil was amongst them, I think, surely. Port. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples; that no audience, but the Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, are able to endure. I have some of them in Limbo Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days; besides the running banquet of two beadles, that is to come. Enter the Lord Chamberlain. Cham. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here! They grow still too: from all parts they are coming, As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters, These lazy knaves ?-Ye have made a fine hand, fellows. There's a trim rabble let in are all these Your faithful friends o' the suburbs? We shall have Cham. As I live, Ye should do service. Hark, the trumpets sound; A Marshalsea, shall hold you play these two months. Port. Make way there for the princess. Man. You great fellow, stand close up, or I'll make your head ache. Port. You i' the camblet, get up o' the rail; I'll pick you o'er the pales else. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-The Palace. Enter trumpets, sounding; then Two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, DUKE OF NORFOLK with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK, Two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christen. ing gifts; then Four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the child_richly habited in a mantle, &c. Train borne by a Lady: then follows the MARCHIONESS OF DORSET, the other godmother, and Ladies. The troop puss once about the stage, and Garter speaks. Gart. Heaven from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth! Flourish. Enter KING and Train. Cran. [Kneeling.] And to your royal grace, and the good queen, My noble partners, and myself, thus pray ;- K. Hen. What is her name ? Cran. K. Hen. Thank you, good lord archbishop, Elizabeth. Stand up, lord.[The KING kisses the child. With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee! Into whose hands I give thy life. Cran, Amen. K. Hen. My noble gossips, ye have been too prodigal: I thank ye heartily; so shall this lady, Cran, Let me speak, sir, For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter In her days, every man shall eat in safety As great in admiration as herself; (When heaven shall call her from this cloud of dark. ness), Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour, Shall be and make new nations: he shall flourish, K. Hen. A most unspotted lily shall she pass To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her. Thou hast made me now a man; never, before To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.— [Exeunt. EPILOGUE. 'Tis ten to one, this play can never please All that are here: some come to take their ease, And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear, We have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis cler, They'll say, 'tis naught: others, to hear the city Abus'd extremely, and to cry,-that's witty!Which we have not done neither: that, I fear All the expected good we are like to hear For this play at this time, is only in The merciful construction of good women; For such a one we show'd them; if they smile, And say, 'twill do, I know, within a while All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill bap, If they hold, when their ladies bid them clap. PROLOGUE. IN Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel. And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, To what may be digested in a play. ACT I. SCENE I.-Troy. Before Priam's Palace. Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant: And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy. Pan. Well I have told you enough of this; for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no farther, He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. Tro. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Tro. Have I not tarried? Pun. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the lea vening. Tro. Still haye I tarried. Pan. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts- Tro. I was about to tell thee: when my heart, But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Tro. O, Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st, she is fair; Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me Pan. I speak no more than truth. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an' she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. Tro. Good Pandarus! how now, Pandarus ? Pan. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me P Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen; an' she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday.But what care I? I care not an' she were a black-amoor; 'tis all one to me. Tro. Say I, she is not fair ? Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks, and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. Tro. Pandarus! Pan. Not I. Tro. Sweet Pandarus! Pan. 'Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An alarum. Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, It is too starv'd a subject for my sword. Ene. How now, Prince Troilus? Wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there; this woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. Troilus, by Menelaus. Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town today! Tro. Better at home, if would I might, were may, But, to the sport abroad;-Are you bound thither? Ene. In all swift haste. Tro. Come, go we then together. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. A Street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER. Cres. Who were those went by ? Alex. Queen Hecuba, and Helen. Cres. And whither go they? Alex. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd: He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light, And to the field goes he; where every flower A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax. Cres. Good: and what of him? Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it: he is a melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing, but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purbliud Argus, all eyes and no sight. Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? Alex. They say, he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking. Enter PANDarus. Cres. Who comes here ? Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus. Alet. As may be in the world, lady. Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium ? Cres. This morning, uncle. Pan. What were you talking of, when I came? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to lliuni ? Helen was not up, was she? Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. Cres. That were we talking of, and of his anger. Cres. So he says here. Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too: he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there is Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too. Cres. What, is he angry too. Pan. Who, Troilus ? Troilus is the better man of the two. Cres. O Jupiter! there's no comparison. Cres. Ay: if ever I saw him before and knew him. Cres. Then you say as I say; for, I am sure he is not Hector. Pan. No, nor Hector is not Troilus, in some degrees. Cres. 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself. Cres. No, but brown. Pan. 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown. Cres. Then, Troilus should have too much: If she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose. Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris. Cres. Then she's a merry Greek, indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him the other day into a compassed window,-and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin. Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector. Cres. Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter? Pan. But, to prove to you that Helen loves him ;she came, and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin, Cres. Juno have mercy!-How came it cloven ? Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think, his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia. Cres. O, he smiles valiantly. Pan. Does he not ? Cres. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. Pan. Why, go to then ;-But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus, Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so. Pan. Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg. Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell. Pan. I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin! Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess. Cres. Without the rack. Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin. Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. Pan. But, there was such laughing ;-Queen Hecuba laughed, that her eyes ran o'er. Cres. With mill-stones. Pan. And Cassandra laughed. Cres. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes;-Did her eyes run o'er too? Pan. And Hector laughed. Cres. At what was all this laughing? Pan. Marry at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin. Cres. An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too. Pan. They laughed not so much at the hair, as at his pretty answer. Cres. What was his answer? Pan. Quoth she, Here's but one and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white. Cres. This is her question. Pan. That's true; make no question of that. One and fifty hairs, quoth he, and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons. Jupiter! quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband? The forked one, quoth he; pluck it out, and give him. But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laugh. ed, that it passed. Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by. Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't. Cres. So I do. Pan. I'll be sworn, 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April. Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A retreat sounded. Pan. Hark, they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here, and see them, as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do; sweet niece Cressida. Cres. At your pleasure. Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by Pan. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a fellow!-Go thy way, Hector!-There's a brave man, niece.-O brave Hector!-Look, how he looks! There's a countenance: is't not a brave man ? Cres. O, a brave man! Pan. Is a' not? It does a man's heart good.-Look you what hacks are on his helmet? look you yonder, do you see? look you there! there's no jesting: there's laying on; tak't off who will, as they say; there be hacks! Cres. Be those with swords? PARIS passes over. Pan. Swords? any thing, he cares not; an the devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good:-Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not?-Why, this is brave now.Who said, he came burt home to-day ? he's not hurt: why this will do Helen's heart good now. Ha! 'would I could see Troilus now!-you shall see Troilus anon. Cres. Who's that? HELENUS passes over. Pan. That's Helenus,-I marvel, where Troilus is: -That's Helenus;-I think he went not forth to-day : -That's Helenus. Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle ? Pan. Helenus? No;-yes, he'll fight indifferent well:-I marvel, where Troilus is!-Hark; do you not hear the people cry, Troilus ?-Helenus is a priest. Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder? TROILUS passes over. Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus: 'tis Troilus! there's a man, niece!-Hem!-Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry. Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! Pan. Mark him; note him!-O brave Troilus!look well upon him, niece; look you, how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack'd than Hector's; and how he looks, and how he goes !-O admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris ?-Paris is dirt to him; and I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. a Forces pass over the stage. Cres. Here come more. Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i'the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Agamemnon and all Greece. Cres. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a better man than Troilus. Pan. Achilles ? a drayman, a porter, a very camel. Cres. Well, well. Pan. Well, well?-Why, have you any discretion ? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man? |