The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Prince of Wales, the Earl of Derby, the Comte d’Artois and Lord Audley

  Warwick, I make thee Warden of the North.

  Thou, Prince of Wales, and Audley, straight to sea,

  Scour to Newhaven—some there stay for me.

  Myself, Artois and Derby will through Flanders

  To greet our friends there and to crave their aid.

  This night will scarce suffice me to discover

  My folly’s siege against a faithful lover,

  For ere the sun shall gild the eastern sky

  We’ll wake him with our martial harmony.

  Exeunt

  Sc. 4 Enter Jean King of France, his two sons (the Dauphin and Prince Philippe) and the Duc de Lorraine

  KING OF FRANCE

  Here, till our navy of a thousand sail

  Have made a breakfast to our foe by sea,

  Let us encamp to wait their happy speed.

  Lorraine, what readiness is Edward in?

  How hast thou heard that he provided is

  Of martial furniture for this exploit?

  DUC DE LORRAINE

  To lay aside unnecessary soothing,

  And not to spend the time in circumstance,

  ’Tis bruited for a certainty, my lord,

  That he’s exceeding strongly fortified.

  His subjects flock as willingly to war

  As if unto a triumph they were led.

  DAUPHIN

  England was wont to harbour malcontents,

  Bloodthirsty and seditious Catilines,

  Spendthrifts, and such as gape for nothing else

  But change and alteration of the state.

  And is it possible

  That they are now so loyal in themselves?

  DUC DE LORRAINE

  All but the Scot, who solemnly protests,

  As heretofore I have informed his grace,

  Never to sheathe his sword or take a truce.

  KING OF FRANCE

  Ah, that’s the anch’rage of some better hope.

  But on the other side, to think what friends

  King Edward hath retained in Netherland,

  Among those ever-bibbing epicures—

  Those frothy Dutchmen, puffed with double beer,

  That drink and swill in every place they come—

  Doth not a little aggravate mine ire.

  Besides, we hear the Emperor conjoins

  And stalls him in his own authority.

  But all the mightier that their number is

  The greater glory reaps the victory!

  Some friends have we beside domestic power—

  The stern Polonian and the warlike Dane,

  The King of Bohême, and of Sicily,

  Are all become confederates with us

  And, as I think, are marching hither apace—

  Sound drums within

  But soft, I hear the music of their drums,

  By which I guess that their approach is near.

  Enter ⌈at one door⌉ the King of Bohemia with Danish soldiers ⌈and a drummer⌉. Enter ⌈at another door⌉ a Polish captain with Muscovite and Polish soldiers ⌈and a drummer⌉

  KING OF BOHEMIA

  King Jean of France, as league and neighbourhood

  Requires when friends are any way distressed,

  I come to aid thee with my country’s force.

  POLISH CAPTAIN (to the King of France)

  And from great Moscow, fearful to the Turk,

  And lofty Poland, nurse of hardy men,

  I bring these servitors to fight for thee,

  Who willingly will venture in thy cause.

  KING OF FRANCE

  Welcome, Bohemian king, and welcome all.

  This your great kindness I will not forget.

  Besides your plentiful rewards in crowns

  That from our treasury ye shall receive,

  There comes a harebrained nation, decked in pride,

  The spoil of whom will be a treble gain.

  And now my hope is full, my joy complete.

  At sea we are as puissant as the force

  Of Agamemnon in the haven of Troy.

  By land, with Xerxes we compare of strength,

  Whose soldiers drank up rivers in their thirst.

  Then, Bayard-like, blind overweening Ned,

  To reach at our imperial diadem

  Is either to be swallowed of the waves,

  Or hacked a-pieces when thou com’st ashore.

  Enter a French Mariner

  MARINER

  Near to the coast I have descried, my lord,

  As I was busy in my watchful charge,

  The proud armada of King Edward’s ships,

  Which, at the first far off when I did ken,

  Seemed as it were a grove of withered pines,

  But drawing near, their glorious bright aspect,

  Their streaming ensigns wrought of coloured silk,

  Like to a meadow full of sundry flowers,

  Adorns the naked bosom of the earth.

  Majestical the order of their course,

  Figuring the hornèd circle of the moon,

  And on the top gallant of the admiral,

  And likewise all the handmaids of his train,

  The arms of England and of France unite

  Are quartered equally by herald’s art.

  Thus titely carried with a merry gale

  They plough the ocean hitherward amain.

  KING OF FRANCE

  Dare he already crop the fleur-de-lis?

  I hope, the honey being gathered thence,

  He, with the spider, afterward approached,

  Shall suck forth deadly venom from the leaves.

  But where’s our navy? How are they prepared

  To wing themselves against this flight of ravens?

  MARINER

  They, having knowledge brought them by the scouts,

  Did break from anchor straight and, puffed with rage,

  No otherwise than were their sails with wind,

  Made forth as when the empty eagle flies

  To satisfy his hungry, griping maw.

  KING OF FRANCE (giving money)

  There’s for thy news. Return unto thy barque,

  And if thou scape the bloody stroke of war

  And do survive the conflict, come again,

  And let us hear the manner of the fight. Exit Mariner

  Mean space, my lords, ’tis best we be dispersed

  To several places, lest they chance to land.

  (To the King of Bohemia) First you, my lord, with your Bohemian troops,

  Shall pitch your battles on the lower hand.

  (To the Dauphin ⌈and the Polish captain⌉)

  My eldest son, the Duke of Normandy,

  Together with this aid of Muscovites,

  Shall climb the higher ground another way.

  Here in the middle coast, betwixt you both,

  Philippe, my youngest boy, and I will lodge.

  So, lords, be gone, and look unto your charge,

  You stand for France, an empire fair and large.

  Exeunt all but the King of France and Prince Philippe

  Now tell me, Philippe, what is thy conceit

  Touching the challenge that the English make?

  PRINCE PHILIPPE

  I say, my lord, claim Edward what he can,

  And bring he ne‘er so plain a pedigree,

  ’Tis you are in possession of the crown,

  And that’s the surest point of all the law.

  But were it not, yet ere he should prevail

  I’ll make a conduit of my dearest blood,

  Or chase those straggling upstarts home again.

  KING OF FRANCE

  Well said, young Philippe! ⌈To an attendant⌉ Call for bread and wine

  That we may cheer our stomachs with repast

  To look our foes more sternly in the face.

  Bread and wine are brought forth. The battle is hear
d afar off. The King and Prince Philippe sup

  Now is begun the heavy day at sea.

  Fight, Frenchmen, fight! Be like the field of bears

  When they defend their younglings in their caves.

  Steer, angry Nemesis, the happy helm

  That with the sulphur battles of your rage

  The English fleet may be dispersed and sunk.

  A cannon shot within

  PRINCE PHILIPPE

  O, father, how this echoing cannon shot,

  Like sweet harmony, digests my cates!

  KING OF FRANCE

  Now, boy, thou hear‘st what thund’ring terror ’tis

  To buckle for a kingdom’s sovereignty.

  The earth, with giddy trembling when it shakes,

  Or when the exhalations of the air

  Breaks in extremity of lightning flash,

  Affrights not more than kings when they dispose

  To show the rancour of their high-swoll’n hearts.

  Retreat sounds within

  Retreat is sounded—one side hath the worse.

  O, if it be the French, sweet fortune turn,

  And in thy turning, change the froward winds

  That, with advantage of a favouring sky,

  Our men may vanquish, and the other fly.

  Enter the French Mariner

  My heart misgives. (To the Mariner) Say, mirror of

  pale death,

  To whom belongs the honour of this day?

  Relate, I pray thee, if thy breath will serve

  The sad discourse of this discomfiture.

  MARINER I will, my lord.

  My gracious sovereign, France hath ta‘en the foil,

  And boasting Edward triumphs with success.

  These iron-hearted navies,

  When last I was reporter to your grace,

  Both full of angry spleen, of hope and fear,

  Hasting to meet each other in the face,

  At last conjoined, and by their admiral

  Our admiral encountered many shot.

  By this, the other, that beheld these twain

  Give earnest-penny of a further wreck,

  Like fiery dragons took their haughty flight;

  And likewise meeting, from their smoky wombs

  Sent many grim ambassadors of death.

  Then ’gan the day to turn to gloomy night,

  And darkness did as well enclose the quick

  As those that were but newly reft of life.

  No leisure served for friends to bid farewell,

  And if it had, the hideous noise was such

  As each to other seemed deaf and dumb.

  Purple the sea whose channel filled as fast

  With streaming gore that from the maimed fell,

  As did her gushing moisture break into

  The cranny cleftures of the through-shot planks.

  Here flew a head dissevered from the trunk;

  There mangled arms and legs were tossed aloft,

  As when a whirlwind takes the summer dust

  And scatters it in middle of the air.

  Then might ye see the reeling vessels split

  And, tottering, sink into the ruthless flood

  Until their lofty tops were seen no more.

  All shifts were tried, both for defence and hurt.

  And now the effect of valour and of fear,

  Of resolution and of cowardice,

  We lively pictured—how the one for fame,

  The other by compulsion, laid about.

  Much did the Nonpareil, that brave ship;

  So did the Black Snake of Boulogne, than which

  A bonnier vessel never yet spread sail.

  But all in vain: both sun, the wind and tide

  Revolted all unto our foemen’s side,

  That we, perforce, were fain to give them way,

  And they are landed. Thus my tale is done.

  We have untimely lost, and they have won.

  KING OF FRANCE

  Then rests there nothing but, with present speed,

  To join our several forces all in one,

  And bid them battle ere they range too far.

  Come, gentle Philippe, let us hence depart;

  This soldier’s words have pierced thy father’s heart.

  Exeunt

  Sc. 5 Enter at one door two Frenchmen without baggage. Enter at another door, meeting them, other Frenchmen and a Frenchwoman with two little children, ⌈all⌉ with baggage

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE

  Well met, my masters. How now? What’s the news,

  And wherefore are ye laden thus with stuff?

  What, is it quarter-day, that you remove,

  And carry bag and baggage too?

  FIRST FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  Quarter-day, ay, and quartering day I fear.

  Have ye not heard the news that flies abroad?

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE What news?

  SECOND FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  How the French navy is destroyed at sea,

  And that the English army is arrived.

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE What then?

  FIRST FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  ‘What then,’ quoth you? Why, is’t not time to fly,

  When envy and destruction is so nigh?

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE

  Content thee, man, they are far enough from hence,

  And will be met, I warrant ye, to their cost,

  Before they break so far into the realm.

  FIRST FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  Ay, so the grasshopper doth spend the time

  In mirthful jollity, till winter come,

  And then, too late, he would redeem his time,

  When frozen cold hath nipped his careless head.

  He that no sooner will provide a cloak

  Than when he sees it doth begin to rain

  May, peradventure, for his negligence,

  Be throughly washed when he suspects it not.

  We that have charge, and such a train as this,

  Must look in time to look for them and us,

  Lest, when we would, we cannot be relieved.

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE

  Belike you then despair of ill success,

  And think your country will be subjugate.

  SECOND FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  We cannot tell. ’Tis good to fear the worst.

  FRENCHMAN WITHOUT BAGGAGE

  Yet rather fight, than like unnatural sons

  Forsake your loving parents in distress.

  FIRST FRENCHMAN WITH BAGGAGE

  Tush, they that have already taken arms

  Are many fearful millions in respect

  Of that small handful of our enemies.

  But ’tis a rightful quarrel must prevail:

  Edward is son unto our late king’s sister,

  Where Jean Valois is three degrees removed.

  FRENCHWOMAN

  Besides, there goes a prophecy abroad,

  Published by one that was a friar once,

  Whose oracles have many times proved true,

  And now he says the time will shortly come

  Whenas a lion roused in the west

  Shall carry hence the fleur-de-lis of France.

  These, I can tell ye, and such like surmises,

  Strike many Frenchmen cold unto the heart.

  Enter a Frenchman in haste

  FLEEING FRENCHMAN

  Fly, countrymen and citizens of France!

  Sweet-flow’ring peace, the root of happy life,

  Is quite abandoned and expulsed the land.

  Instead of whom, ransack-constraining war

  Sits like to ravens upon your houses’ tops.

  Slaughter and mischief walk within your streets

  And, unrestrained, make havoc as they pass,

  The form whereof, even now, myself beheld

  Upon this fair mountain, whence I came.

  For so far off as I
directed mine eyes

  I might perceive five cities all on fire,

  Cornfields and vineyards burning like an oven,

  And, as the reeking vapour in the wind

  Y-turnèd but aside, I likewise might discern

  The poor inhabitants, escaped the flame,

  Fall numberless upon the soldiers’ pikes.

  Three ways these dreadful ministers of wrath

  Do tread the measures of their tragic march:

  Upon the right hand comes the conquering King,

  Upon the left his hot, unbridled son,

  And in the midst their nation’s glittering host.

  All which, though distant, yet conspire in one

  To leave a desolation where they come.

  Fly, therefore, citizens, if you be wise.

  Seek out some habitation further off.

  Here, if you stay, your wives will be abused,

  Your treasure shared before your weeping eyes.

  Shelter you yourselves, for now the storm doth rise.

  Away, away! Methinks I hear their drums!

  Ah, wretched France, I greatly fear thy fall;

  Thy glory shaketh like a tottering wall.

  Exeunt

  Sc. 6 Enter King Edward and the Earl of Derby with soldiers and Gobin de Grace

  KING EDWARD

  Where is the Frenchman by whose cunning guide

  We found the shallow of this river Somme,

  And had direction how to pass the sea?

  GOBIN

  Here, my good lord.

  KING EDWARD

  How art thou called? Tell me thy name.

  GOBIN

  Gobin de Grace, if please your excellence.

  KING EDWARD

  Then, Gobin, for the service thou hast done

  We here enlarge and give thee liberty,

  And for a recompense, beside this good,

  Thou shalt receive five hundred marks in gold.

  (To Derby) I know not how we should have missed our son,

  Whom now in heart I wish I might behold.

  Enter the Comte d’Artois

  COMTE D’ARTOIS

  Good news, my lord! The Prince is hard at hand,

  And with him comes Lord Audley and the rest

  Whom, since our landing, we could never meet.

  Enter Edward Prince of Wales, Lord Audley and soldiers

  KING EDWARD

  Welcome, fair Prince. How hast thou sped, my son,

  Since thy arrival on the coast of France?