The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Grace in all simplicity,

  Here enclosed in cinders lie.

  Death is now the phoenix’ nest,

  And the turtle’s loyal breast

  To eternity doth rest.

  Leaving no posterity

  ’Twas not their infirmity,

  It was married chastity.

  Truth may seem but cannot be,

  Beauty brag, but ’tis not she.

  Truth and beauty buried be.

  To this urn let those repair

  That are either true or fair.

  For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

  Verses upon the Stanley Tomb at Tong

  Written upon the east end of the tomb

  Ask who lies here, but do not weep.

  He is not dead; he doth but sleep.

  This stony register is for his bones;

  His fame is more perpetual than these stones,

  And his own goodness, with himself being gone,

  Shall live when earthly monument is none.

  Written upon the West end thereof

  Not monumental stone preserves our fame,

  Nor sky-aspiring pyramids our name.

  The memory of him for whom this stands

  Shall outlive marble and defacers’ hands.

  When all to time’s consumption shall be given,

  Stanley for whom this stands shall stand in heaven.

  On Ben Jonson

  Master Ben Jonson and Master William Shakespeare

  being merry at a tavern, Master Jonson having begun

  this for his epitaph:Here lies Ben Jonson

  That was once one,

  he gives it to Master Shakespeare to make up who

  presently writes:Who while he lived was a slow thing,

  And now, being dead, is nothing.

  An Epitaph on Elias James

  When God was pleased, the world unwilling yet,

  Elias James to nature paid his debt,

  And here reposeth. As he lived, he died,

  The saying strongly in him verified:

  ‘Such life, such death’. Then, a known truth to tell,

  He lived a godly life, and died as well.

  An extemporary epitaph on John Combe, a noted usurer

  Ten in the hundred here lies engraved;

  A hundred to ten his soul is not saved.

  If anyone ask who lies in this tomb,

  ‘O ho!’ quoth the devil, “tis my John-a-Combe.’

  Another Epitaph on John Combe

  He being dead, and making the poor his heirs, William

  Shakespeare after writes this for his epitaph:

  Howe’er he lived judge not,

  John Combe shall never be forgot

  While poor hath memory, for he did gather

  To make the poor his issue; he, their father,

  As record of his tilth and seed 5

  Did crown him in his latter deed.

  Upon the King

  At the foot of the effigy of King James I, before his Works (1616)

  Crowns have their compass; length of days, their date;

  Triumphs, their tombs; felicity, her fate.

  Of more than earth can earth make none partaker,

  But knowledge makes the king most like his maker.

  Epitaph on Himself

  Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear

  To dig the dust enclosed here.

  Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

  And cursed be he that moves my bones.

  SIR THOMAS MORE

  BY ANTHONY MUNDAY AND HENRY CHETTLE, WITH REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS BY THOMAS DEKKER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND THOMAS HEY WOOD

  THE text that follows is entirely different from any other in this volume. All the other plays derive from printed editions; this comes from what is probably the untidiest, most heavily revised dramatic manuscript of the period, giving us unique insights into its playwrights’ working conditions. It represents a troubled and ultimately abandoned attempt on the part of various authors to create a script, interrupted by the censorial intervention of the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney. The working manuscript preserved in the British Library is described on its first leaf as ‘The Booke’—that is, the theatre manuscript—‘of Sir Thomas Moore.’ The basic manuscript is a fair copy made by the dramatist Anthony Munday (1560-1633) of a text in which he may have collaborated with Henry Chettle (c. 1560-c. 1607). Alterations and additions were made by Chettle, Thomas Dekker (c. 15 72-1632), very probably William Shakespeare, and probably Thomas Heywood (c. 1573-1641). A theatre scribe annotated parts of the manuscript, and some of the revisions exist in transcripts he wrote out. In this edition each section is preceded and concluded with an identification of the hand.

  It seems likely that the original play was written during the early 1590s and submitted in the usual way to the Master of the Revels for a licence. Tilney called for substantial alterations. Though the play’s favourable portrait of a man sometimes seen as a Catholic martyr was provocative, Tilney’s attention was concentrated mostly on the insurrection scenes. In our view the original play was laid aside until soon after Queen Elizabeth died, in 1603, when the political objections would have carried less weight, and the revisions—which do not meet Tilney’s requirements—were made then. Shakespeare’s authorship of the majority of Sc.6, first proposed in 1871, has been accepted by most scholars on the basis of handwriting and of the evidence of dramatic and linguistic style. His contribution shows him as a thoroughgoing professional sharing with colleagues whose work he respected in an essentially collaborative enterprise.

  Sir Thomas More is based on Holinshed’s Chronicles and Nicholas Harpsfield’s biography of More. Sheriff More peacefully quells the riots of Londoners against resident foreigners on the ‘Ill May Day’ of 1517, and is appointed Lord Chancellor as a reward. In the Shakespearian Sc. 6, More persuades the rebels to surrender to the King, arguing for obedience to authority and challenging the rebels to consider their own plight if, like the strangers, they were to live in exile. A passage less securely attributed to Shakespeare is More’s bemused and wary soliloquy at the beginning of Sc. 8. The play elsewhere presents a series of serio-comic episodes dramatizing his wit in attempting to reform minor offenders, his credentials as a humanist, his practical joking, and his love of plays. More’s downfall and passage to the scaffold begin when he refuses the King’s demand that he sign unspecified articles. Later scenes, though sombre in tone, depict his almost light-hearted resolution to pursue death rather than yield to the King’s demands.

  The play has been performed most notably by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2005.

  THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

  Thomas MORE, a sheriff of London, later Sir Thomas More and

  Lord Chancellor

  The Earl of SHREWSBURY

  The Earl of SURREY

  John LINCOLN, a broker

  DOLL Williamson

  WILLIAMSON, her husband, a carpenter

  GEORGE BETTS

  CLOWN BETTS, his brother, called Ralph

  SHERWIN, a goldsmith

  Francis de BARDE, a Lombard

  CAVELIER, a Lombard or Frenchman

  The LORD MAYOR of London

  The LADY MAYORESS

  Justice SURESBY

  LIFTER, a cutpurse

  SMART, the plaintiff against him

  The RECORDER of London

  Sir Thomas PALMER

  Sir Roger CHOLMLEY

  Sir John MUNDAY

  A SERGEANT-at-arms

  CROFTS, a messenger from the King

  RANDALL, More’s manservant

  Jack FALKNER, a ruffian

  ERASMUS, a learned clerk of Rotterdam

  MORRIS, secretary to the Bishop of Winchester

  The Lord Cardinal’s PLAYERS, performing the roles of:

  INCLINATION

  PROLOGUE

  WIT

  A boy player of LADY VANITY

  LUGGINS, player of Good Co
unsel

  William ROPER, More’s son-in-law

  LADY MORE, his wife

  ROPER’S WIFE, one of More’s daughters

  More’s OTHER DAUGHTER

  CATESBY, More’s steward

  GOUGH, More’s secretary

  Doctor Fisher, Bishop of ROCHESTER

  DOWNES, another sergeant-at-arms

  LIEUTENANT of the Tower

  A GENTLEMAN PORTER of the Tower

  The HANGMAN

  A poor WOMAN, a client of More

  Other SHERIFFS

  MESSENGERS

  CLERK of the Council

  OFFICERS

  Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Aldermen, Citizens, Prentices, Servingmen, Warders of the Tower, and Attendants

  NOTE ON SPECIAL FEATURES OF PRESENTATION

  Complexities in the manuscript have led to the following modifications of standard Oxford Shakespeare presentation.

  Rules across the column show where the text switches from the Original Text to a revision and back, or from one revision to another. Notes in the right margin above and below these rules specify the section of the manuscript and the hand.

  Annotations in a second hand are preserved and printed in a special typeface. Passages in the manuscript explicitly or implicitly deleted are underlined in this edition, except where the final text as edited duplicates the deleted text (see Appendix B). Identifiable interventions by second hands are as follows:

  Tilney: in Sc. 1, Sc. 3, Sc. 10.

  Playhouse book-keeper: in Sc. 4, Sc. 6 (Addition II and 1. 234), Sc. 9.

  Dekker: phrase at 8.232-3. Heywood(?): addition of Clown’s part in Sc. 6 and Sc. 7.

  Angle brackets 〈 〉 indicate gaps in the text due to damage to the manuscript.

  Stage directions reflect the wording of the manuscript unless enclosed in special brackets ⌈ ⌉.

  The Book of Sir Thomas More

  [Original Text (monday)]

  [Tilney]

  Leave out the insurrection wholly and the cause thereof, and begin with Sir Thomos More at the Mayor’s sessions, with a report afterwards of his good service done being Sheriff of London upon a mutiny against the Lombards—only by a short report, and not otherwise, at your own perils. E. Tilney.

  Sc. 1 Enter at one end John Lincoln with George Betts and Clown Betts together. At the other end enters Francis de Barde and Doll, a lusty woman, he hauling her by the arm

  DOLL Whither wilt thou haul me?

  BARDE Whither I please. Thou art my prize, and I plead purchase of thee.

  DOLL Purchase of me? Away, ye rascal! I am an honest, plain carpenter’s wife, and, though I have no beauty to like a husband, yet whatsoever is mine scorns to stoop to a stranger. Hand off then when I bid theel

  BARDE Go with me quietly, or I’ll compel thee.

  DOLL Compel me, ye dog’s face? Thou think‘st thou hast the goldsmith’s wife in hand, whom thou enticed’st from her husband with all his plate, and when thou turned‘st her home to him again mad’st him, like an ass, pay for his wife’s board.

  BARDE So will I make thy husband too, if please me. Enter Cavelier, with a pair of doves, Williamson the carpenter and Sherwin following him

  DOLL Here he comes himself. Tell him so if thou dar’st.

  CAVELIER [to Williamson] Follow me no further. I say thou shalt not have them.

  WILLIAMSON I bought them in Cheapside, and paid my money for them.

  SHERWIN He did, sir, indeed, and you offer him wrong, both to take them from him and not restore him his money neither.

  CAVELIER If he paid for them, let it suffice that I possess them. Beefs and brewis may serve such hinds. Are pigeons meat for a coarse carpenter?

  LINCOLN [ aside to George Betts] It is hard when Englishmen’s patience must be thus jetted on by strangers, and they not dare to revenge their own wrongs.

  GEORGE BETTS [aside to Lincoln] Lincoln, let’s beat them down, and bear no more of these abuses.

  LINCOLN [aside to George Betts] We may not, Betts. Be patient and hear more.

  DOLL How now, husband? What, one stranger take thy food from thee, and another thy wife? By’r Lady, flesh and blood, I think, can hardly brook that.

  LINCOLN Will this gear never be otherwise? Must these wrongs be thus endured?

  GEORGE BETTS Let us step in, and help to revenge their injury.

  BARDE What art thou that talkest of revenge? My Lord Ambassador shall once more make your Mayor have a check if he punish thee not for this saucy presumption.

  WILLIAMSON Indeed my Lord Mayor on the Ambassador’s complaint sent me to Newgate one day because, against my will, I took the wall of a stranger. You may do anything. The goldsmith’s wife, and mine now, must be at your commandment.

  GEORGE BETTS The more patient fools are ye both to suffer it.

  BARDE Suffer it? Mend it thou or he if ye can or dare. I tell thee, fellow, an she were the Mayor of London’s wife, had I her once in my possession I would keep her in spite of him that durst say nay.

  GEORGE BETTS I tell thee, Lombard, these words should cost thy best cap, were I not curbed by duty and obedience. The Mayor of London’s wife? O God, shall it be thus?

  DOLL Why, Betts, am not I as dear to my husband as my Lord Mayor’s wife to him, [ to Williamson] and wilt thou so neglectly suffer thine own shame? [To de Barde ] Hands off, proud stranger, or, by Him that bought me, if men’s milky hearts dare not strike a stranger, yet women will beat them down ere they bear these abuses. BARDE Mistress, I say you shall along with me.

  DOLL Touch not Doll Williamson, lest she lay thee along on God’s dear earth. (To Cavelier) And you, sir, that allow such coarse cates to carpenters, whilst pigeons which they pay for must serve your dainty appetite: deliver them back to my husband again, or I’ll call so many women to mine assistance as we’ll not leave one inch untorn of thee. If our husbands must be bridled by law, and forced to bear your wrongs, their wives will be a little lawless, and soundly beat ye.

  CAVELIER Come away, de Barde, and let us go complain to my Lord Ambassador. Exeunt both

  DOLL Ay, go, and send him among us, and we’ll give him his welcome too. I am ashamed that free-born Englishmen, having beaten strangers within their own bounds, should thus be braved and abused by them at home.

  SHERWIN It is not our lack of courage in the cause, but the strict obedience that we are bound to. I am the goldsmith whose wrongs you talked of; but how to redress yours or mine own is a matter beyond all our abilities.

  LINCOLN Not so, not so, my good friends. I, though a mean man, a broker by profession, and named John Lincoln, have long time winked at these vile enormities with mighty impatience, and, as these two brethren here, Bettses by name, can witness, with loss of mine own life would gladly remedy them.

  GEORGE BETTS And he is in a good forwardness, I tell ye, if all hit right.

  DOLL As how, I prithee? Tell it to Doll Williamson.

  LINCOLN You know the Spital sermons begin the next week. I have drawn a bill of our wrongs, and the strangers’ insolencies.

  GEORGE BETTS Which he means the preachers shall there openly publish in the pulpit.

  WILLIAMSON O, but that they would! I’faith, it would tickle our strangers thoroughly.

  DOLL Ay, and if you men durst not undertake it, before God, we women will. Take an honest woman from her husband? Why, it is intolerable.

  SHERWIN ⌈to Lincoln⌉ But how find ye the preachers affected to our proceeding?

  LINCOLN Master Doctor Standish means not to meddle with any such matter in his sermon, but Doctor Beal will do in this matter as much as a priest may do to reform it, and doubts not but happy success will ensue upon our wrongs. You shall perceive there’s no hurt in the bill. Here’s a copy of it. I pray ye, hear it.

  ALL THE REST With all our hearts. For God’s sake, read it.

  LINCOLN (reads) ‘To you all the worshipful lords and masters of this city, that will take compassion over the poor people your neighbours, and also of the great importable
hurts, losses, and hindrances whereof proceedeth extreme poverty to all the King’s subjects that inhabit within this city and suburbs of the same. For so it is that aliens and strangers eat the bread from the fatherless children, and take the living from all the artificers, and the intercourse from all merchants, whereby poverty is so much increased that every man bewaileth the misery of other; for craftsmen be brought to beggary, and merchants to neediness. Wherefore, the premises considered, the redress must be of the commons, knit and united to one part. And as the hurt and damage grieveth all men, so must all men set to their willing power for remedy, and not suffer the said aliens in their wealth, and the natural-born men of this region to come to confusion.’

  DOLL Before God, ’tis excellent, and I’ll maintain the suit to be honest.

  SHERWIN Well, say ’tis read, what is your further meaning in the matter?

  GEORGE BETTS What? Marry, list to me. No doubt but this will store us with friends enough, whose names we will closely keep in writing, and on May Day next in the morning we’ll go forth a-Maying, but make it the worst May Day for the strangers that ever they saw. How say ye? Do ye subscribe, or are ye faint-hearted revolters?

  DOLL Hold thee, George Betts, there’s my hand and my heart. By the Lord, I’ll make a captain among ye, and do somewhat to be talked of for ever after.