And change misdoubt to resolution;
Be that thou hopest to be, or what thou art
Resign to death; it is not worth th’enjoying.
Let pale-faced fear keep with the mean-born man,
And find no harbour in a royal heart.
Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought,
And not a thought but thinks on dignity.
My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,
Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.
Well, nobles, well; ’tis politicly done,
To send me packing with an host of men.
I fear me you but warm the starvèd snake,
Who, cherished in your breasts, will sting your hearts.
’Twas men I lacked, and you will give them me;
I take it kindly; yet be well assured
You put sharp weapons in a madman’s hands.
Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,
I will stir up in England some black storm
Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;
And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage
Until the golden circuit on my head,
Like to the glorious sun’s transparent beams,
Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.
And, for a minister of my intent,
I have seduced a headstrong Kentishman,
John Cade of Ashford,
To make commotion, as full well he can,
Under the tide of John Mortimer.
In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade
Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,
And fought so long till that his thighs with darts
Were almost like a sharp-quilled porpentine;
And, in the end being rescued, I have seen
Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,
Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.
Full often, like a shag-haired crafty kern,
Hath he conversèd with the enemy,
And undiscovered come to me again
And given me notice of their villainies.
This devil here shall be my substitute;
For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,
In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble;
By this I shall perceive the commons’ mind,
How they affect the house and claim of York.
Say he be taken, racked, and torturèd,
I know no pain they can inflict upon him
Will make him say I moved him to those arms.
Say that he thrive, as ’tis great like he will,
Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,
And reap the harvest which that rascal sowed;
For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,
And Henry put apart, the next for me.
Henry VI Part 3
[I, iv, 1–26] Just as it seemed he had succeeded in wresting the succession to the throne from the weakling Henry VI, York finds himself up against altogether tougher opposition in the shape of the formidable Queen Margaret. They have met in battle, and things are not, York realizes, going his way:
The army of the Queen hath got the field;
My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;
And all my followers to the eager foe
Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind
Or lambs pursued by hunger-starvèd wolves.
My sons, God knows what hath bechancèd them;
But this I know, they have demeaned themselves
Like men born to renown by life or death.
Three times did Richard make a lane to me,
And thrice cried ‘Courage, father! Fight it out!’
And full as oft came Edward to my side,
With purple falchion, painted to the hilt
In blood of those that had encountered him.
And when the hardiest warriors did retire,
Richard cried ‘Charge! And give no foot of ground!’
And cried ‘A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
A sceptre or an earthly sepulchre!’
With this we charged again; but, out, alas!
We budged again; as I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide
And spend her strength with overmatching waves.
A short alarum within
Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,
And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;
And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.
The sands are numbered that make up my life;
Here must I stay, and here my life must end.
[II, v, 1–54] Another day, another battle, but Henry VI is more a philosopher than a fighter:
This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd;
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so!
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now;
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock,
So many hours must I take my rest,
So many hours must I contemplate,
So many hours must I sport myself,
So many days my ewes have been with young,
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! How sweet! How lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude: the shepherd’s homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couchèd in a curious bed,
When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.
[II, v, 55–124] First one soldier, then another enters – both bearing the bodies of men they have killed. The King retires, and an agonizing three-part counterpoint of soliloquy ensues:
SON
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight
May be possessèd with some store of crowns;
And I, that haply take them from him now,
May yet ere night yield both my life and them
To some man else, as this dead man doth me. –
Takes off dead man’s helmet
Who’s this? O God! It is my father’s face,
Whom in this conflict I, unwares, have killed.
O, heavy times, begetting such events!
From London by the King was I pressed forth;
My father, being the Earl of Warwick’s man,
Came on the part of York, pressed by his master;
And I, who at his hands received my life,
Have by my hands of life bereavèd him.
Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did!
And pardon, father, for I knew not thee!
My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;
And no more words till they have flowed their fill.
KING
O, piteous spectacle! O, bloody times!
Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,
Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
Weep, wretched man; I’ll aid thee tear for tear;
And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
Be blind with tears and break o’ercharged with grief.
Enter at another door a Father that hath killed his son, with the dead body in his arms
FATHER
Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,
Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;
For I have bought it with an hundred blows.
But let me see: is this our foeman’s face?
Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son!
Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,
Throw up thine eye! See, see what showers arise,
Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,
Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!
O, pity, God, this miserable age!
What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!
O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,
And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!
KING
Woe above woe! Grief more than common grief!
O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!
The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses;
The one his purple blood right well resembles;
The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.
Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!
If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.
SON
How will my mother for a father’s death
Take on with me, and ne’er be satisfied!
FATHER
How will my wife for slaughter of my son
Shed seas of tears, and ne’er be satisfied!
KING
How will the country for these woeful chances
Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!
SON
Was ever son so rued a father’s death?
FATHER
Was ever father so bemoaned his son?
KING
Was ever king so grieved for subjects’ woe?
Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.
SON
I’ll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.
Exit with the body of his father
FATHER
These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;
My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,
For from my heart thine image ne’er shall go;
My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;
And so obsequious will thy father be,
Even for the loss of thee, having no more,
As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
I’ll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
For I have murdered where I should not kill.
Exit with the body of his son
KING
Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
Here sits a king more woeful than you are.
[III, ii, 124–95] Another angry Richard, the crookbacked Duke of Gloucester, broods bitterly on his brother’s handsome form and courteous ways – and the fecundity that has set so many obstacles in his own path to the throne:
Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,
To cross me from the golden time I look for!
And yet, between my soul’s desire and me –
The lustful Edward’s title burièd –
Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,
And all the unlooked-for issue of their bodies,
To take their rooms ere I can place myself:
A cold premeditation for my purpose!
Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;
Like one that stands upon a promontory
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
Saying he’ll lade it dry to have his way;
So do I wish the crown, being so far off;
And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;
And so I say I’ll cut the causes off,
Flattering me with impossibilities.
My eye’s too quick, my heart o’erweens too much,
Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard,
What other pleasure can the world afford?
I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap,
And deck my body in gay ornaments,
And ’witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
O, miserable thought! And more unlikely
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!
Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb;
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlicked bear-whelp
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be beloved?
O, monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o’erbear such
As are of better person than myself,
I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And whiles I live, t’account this world but hell,
Until my misshaped trunk that bear this head
Be round impalèd with a glorious crown,
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home;
And I – like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out –
Torment myself to catch the English crown;
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘Content!’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I’ll slay m
ore gazers than the basilisk;
I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.
[V, vi, 61–93] Undaunted by the flesh-and-blood barriers between him and his succession, Richard continues in his violent progress towards power with the cold-hearted murder of King Henry himself:
What! Will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
See how my sword weeps for the poor King’s death!
O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house!
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,
(He stabs him again)
I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of;
For I have often heard my mother say
I came into the world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
And seek their ruin that usurped our right?
The midwife wondered and the women cried
‘O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!’
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word ‘love’, which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me; I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keepest me from the light,
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
That Edward shall be fearful of his life,
And then to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death.
King Henry and the Prince his son are gone;
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
Counting myself but bad till I be best.
I’ll throw thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
Titus Andronicus
[II, i, 1–24] The servant shall be master, resolves Aaron, Moorish lover of Tamora, the Gothic Queen, seeing opportunities for himself in her marriage to Saturninus, Emperor of Rome:
Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top,
Safe out of fortune’s shot, and sits aloft,
Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me? Page 2